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Reprinted from Vol. XIII, Collections Kansas State Historical Society. 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


Wm. E. Connelley. 
Chas. S. Gleed. 
Chas. E. Cory. 
Judge J. S. West. 







V 





BRONZE BUST EUGENE F. WARE. 
Presented to the Historical Society. 


D„ of Do 

NOV 26,1915 














\ 


•it 

i 



J 



EUGENE FITCH WARE. 


Delivered by Charles Sumner Gleed, before the thirty-ninth annual meeting of the State 
Historical Society, at Topeka, October 20, 1914, on presentation of the bust of Mr. Ware to the 
Society. 

E VERY man is, in countless ways, like every other man—and yet every 
man has a certain character all his own. Every well-defined com¬ 
munity—city, state or nation—is, in countless ways, like ever other com¬ 
munity, and yet every one has a character peculiar to itself. 

As with individuals so with communities—each is composite, each is the 
resultant of many forces, many lines of influence, many rills, rivers and gulf 
streams of creative element. 

The state of Kansas is no exception to this rule. In a general way it is 
like all the other states of the Union, but, examined closely, it is found t© 
have a character all its own which distinguishes it from its sister states. 
This individuality may be accounted for more or less fully by a study of the 
greater influences which combined to create it. 

Not least among these influences has been the large number of war- 
trained people who have participated in its development. At the beginning 
Kansas was itself a battle field. Then came men from all the modern battle¬ 
fields of the world. Englishmen who fought in the Crimea; Germans who 
helped make the German empire; Frenchmen who defended France so 
bravely that Germany only ca’ried away Alsace and Lorraine and some tons 
of money; Americans from the war in Mexico; Americans from the war with 
Indians; and chiefly Americans who fought Americans in the War of the 
Rebellion—all these and many more came to the virgin fields of Kansas to 
construct a state, and they did not fail. Failure was foreign to their habits 
and instincts. Their help in making a vigorous, aggressive, progressive and 
militant state was enormous. To them we owe thanks for many things of 
which we readily boast. 

In the world’s history, when great armies have disbanded the fighting 
men have, for the most part, melted away into the slums and morasses of 
civilization, adding to the sum total of moral degradation all they have learned 
that was bad and forgetting all they ever knew that was good. But when the 
war to suppress the rebellion of certain southern states in the American 
Union was ended the fighters went their several ways, not into the slums and 
morasses but into the most vivid activity of our most vivid civilization. 
The honorable work of the land was taken over by the soldiers. It mattered 
little on which side one fought, he was welcome to any task which required 
courage, fidelity and intelligence. The making of the Great West was one of 
the pending tasks. The soldiers from both sides and all the states entered 
into this work with magnificent fury. 

Probably no better example of the soldier state-maker can be named 
than the late Eugene Fitch Ware—soldier, lawyer, statesman, poet, author, 
and leading citizen. He was born in Connecticut, of Puritan stock. His 
forebears were fighters and thinkers and workers. He grew from childhood 
to manhood in Iowa, and became, at nineteen years of age, a soldier con¬ 
tending for the preservation of the Union. After the war he came to Kansas, 
in which state, as an active citizen for more than forty years, he won the 


( 3 ) 


4 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


.description I have applied to him. He practiced law, promoted industries, 
wrote for and edited newspapers, helped build railroads, participated in 
the making of and adjudication of many laws, encouraged libraries, wrote 
books, and took a conspicuous part in politics. Few lives were ever more 
active in a greater variety of lines. 

Let us look close to see the education which this man brought to the 
task of helping build a state for us and our descendants. 

Ware was fond of thS fact, if I may so phrase it, that all the examples 
of ancient armor which have come down to us show that the “giants of 
those days” were physically inferior to our own people. In other words, 
he enjoyed feeling that he could have bested the Roman fighting man of two 
or three thousand years ago in a fair fight. He was six feet in height,was 
perfectly proportioned, and a man of tremendous strength and endurance. 
That his life must be an active one was foreordained. His mental and 
physical vigor gave ample assurance that he would be found in the thick of 
the fight—every fight which was free to all comers. And there we find him 
in all the years after his boyhood. 

Almost every page of recorded history tells of the titanic struggles of the 
human race. To smite or be smitten has been the grim alternative out of 
which the bloody flowers of history have grown. To be or not to be 
has been the question of nations. The determination to be has always 
been a declaration of war. Strong men striving for supremacy have 
inspired the poets and the story-tellers of the ages. Polybius, Plutarch, 
Caesar, Livy, Homer, Virgil — all have recited the wrangling of the giants in > 
the arenas of the world. So true is this, so impressive is this aspect of history, 
that no man can read it deeply, or even superficially, without feelings, first, 
of horror at the endless procession of savage wars, and, second, regret if his 
life has been uneventful, that some share of such strenuous life has not fallen 
to his own lot. To have been denied the riot of battle, the nights of terror, 
the days of anxiety, the hours of anguish, the chaos of disaster and the 
frenzy of victory, which pertain to the only life which historians, for the 
most part, consider it worth while to notice, is to have lost that which almost 
seems to be the chief end of man. 

Eugene Ware did not suffer this loss. Of splendid stature, a warrior in 
disposition, courageous, restless, ingenuous, resourceful and patriotic, he 
could not have avoided war if war existed. He could not possibly have kept 
away from the fighting in 1861. His first great anxiety was due to the danger 
that he might not be included as a member of the first company—company 
E, First Iowa infantry—which was accepted from his home town. Hi& 
story of how he came to be accepted in spite of the fact that he was under 
age is amusing and instructive. He had been drilling in an amateur com¬ 
pany of zouaves. When the call came this company was accepted, but not 
so many men were wanted as were in the company. One night young Waro 
went in search of the captain to plead his cause. The captain was in a 
saloon. Ware went in to find him, and while searching he ran across a 
Kentucky man who was loudly proclaiming that the Yankees could not 
fight and that one southern man could whip five northern men. Ware took 
issue with this talk, and a fight followed in which Ware put the Kentuckian 
to sleep in two or three rounds. The captain of the company appeared in 
time to see the fight, and rewarded Ware by including him in the company.. 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


5 


A neighbor carried to the elder Ware an account of the battle, and Ware 
says: “My pious old father with great anguish recited the story to me, and 
gave me much advice about visiting such places and being engaged* in bar¬ 
room brawls. He called up our old Puritanic ancestry, and he seemed to 
feel remarkably bad; but the occurrence fixed me up all right-for the zouave 
company. ” 

After much drill at home, with many amateur devices for securing the 
experiences of the field within easy reach of the family dinner bell, the day 
came when the young soldiers marched away or steamed away to war. 
The first important stopping place was Hannibal. Early in the history of 
the regiment the worthlessness of most officers who secured official position 
by political pull began to appear. Of what happened in Hannibal Ware 
writes: 

“On arrival at Hannibal we were marched up into the town and halted 
on the street in the black night. We stood there about an hour waiting for 
orders. ‘What are we doing here?’ asked every one; nobody knew. The 
officers were all gone. In fact, they were up at the hotel, sound asleep, and 
had left us to take care of ourselves. Bad officers sometimes are a benefit 
to their men; the men learn to take care of themselves, are put on their own 
resources, and do not rely upon any one to look after or provide for them. 
It gives the men initiative, and puts them on the lookout. This night in 
Hannibal I will never forget. We had no supper; after waiting a while we 
went to the curbstone of the pavement and sat down. We stacked our arms 
in the middle of the street, put two guards to watch, then lying down on the 
brick pavement we curled up and went To sleep. We were awakened at 
sunrise by a bugle call. We ‘took’ arms and formed in line, but it was a 
false alarm. The call was from a group of tents on a hill near town where 
two companies of Illinois infantry (I think the Sixteenth) had camped the 
day before. I may say here that one of the private soldiers in the Illinois 
tents afterwards became, and remained through life, one of my best and 
warmest friends—Noble L. Prentis. ” 

Down through Missouri went the boy soldiers Jrom Iowa. They were 
shot at as they went by on the cars. Ware was put on top of a freight train 
loaded with soldiers. He found it necessary to lie flat on the tops of the 
cars to diminish himself as a target. This was humiliating, and the only way 
out was to return the shots, which he did—with interest. The regiment 
lingered awhile. Ware says: 

“At Macon City, when we arrived there, I was detailed on guard, and 
was stationed the furthest out on the dump, and was ordered to keep my 
gun loaded and cocked , so that if I was picked off I might at least have 
strength enough left to fire an alarm. This was comforting. I had just 
passed a hard day and night before I went on guard, and on the next morn¬ 
ing I came in pretty well used up. I was asked to go into town and find a 
grindstone and sharpen the mess cutlery preparatory to a campaign. I did 
so, and also ground my bayonet down to a fine, sharp, triangular point. 
When I came back I heard that the captain had ordered all guns cleaned and 
an inspection for noon. I went to the captain and asked permission to fire 
off the load in my musket, because it would take too long to draw the load 
with a ball-screw. He said, ‘Yes.’ Thereupon I fired the gun into the 
bank, and had hardly begun to clean it when a squad came and arrested 


6 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


me, by order of the colonel, for firing the gun. I claimed the permission of 
the captain, and they took me before him, and he denied it. Thereupon a 
colloquy arose, and I called the captain something, and then I called him 
something else. I remember the idea, but not the exact language. There¬ 
upon I was gently conveyed to the guardhouse, which was the freight house 
of the railroad—not a large building—standing upon stilts. I never felt so 
bad in my life. I wanted to shoot the captain and burn the depot. 

There were a couple of cars of freight in the depot and it was piled up against 
the end wall, and on the top about eight feet up was a layer of lightning rods. 
I got up on the lightning rods and went to sleep. After a while I woke up, 
and the more rested the more mutinous I became. The officer of the guard 
drew a line on the floor with chalk, beyond which I must not go; it gave 
me about eight feet of the end of the room. I occupied it and planned 
devilment. . . In a lonesome and degraded mood, and wanting 

something to do, I proceeded to pull down the lightning rods onto the floor 
so as to make a better place to sleep, and lo and behold, I discovered a half¬ 
barrel labeled “Golden Grape Cognac.” Now here was a place to do some 
thinking. ... I took my bayonet, which was naturally crooked and 
artificially sharp, and using it like a brace and bit, I began to bore into the 
head of the cognac barrel.” 

By a clever device he ran the cognac down through the floor of the freight 
house to his fellow soldiers. The result may better be imagined than de¬ 
scribed. It was worse than mere war. 

Soon enough the young fighters were out of the cars and on foot. Here 
is Ware’s allusion to the wind-up of one day’s march early in the campaign: 

“There never was a more exhausted mudsill than I was. The day had 
been hot, and seventeen miles in the sun carrying my accouterments, and, 
above all, the old ‘smoke-pole,’ which by evening weighed a ton, about 
used me up. I did not get into camp until 9 p. m. I sat down on a wagon 
tongue; the boys were lying all around, sleeping every which way. Old 
Mace [the cook] brought me a tin cup of coffee. It was too hot. I was too 
tired to eat. I set the coffee down on the ground to cool; I then slid over 
backwards on the ground, my legs over the wagon tongue, and I slept until 
dawn. I then freed myself of the tongue, drank the cold coffee, and crawled 
under the wagon and went to sleep again. We were in the middle of a road, 
but it was a good enough place to sleep.” 

One of the most deadly foes met by the boys in their journey south is 
thus described: 

“There was a house near our camp that had outdoors a large soap kettle. 
I was with Corporal Churubusco. We figured up how many different 
insects we were harboring; it was seven. ‘Yes,’ said the corporal, ‘and 
mosquitoes will be eight.’ We got a fire under the soap kettle and got some 
water boiling, and then put in our clothes, while we took scissors and trim¬ 
med each other’s hair down to the cuticle. While our clothes were boiling 
we went down to the river in ‘undress uniform’ and with a bar of acrid, 
illnatured soap we did our best; then we returned, wrung out our boiling 
clothes, put them on, and dried them in situ as rapidly as possible. The insect 
pests of Missouri never let up during the campaign; the chiggers and the 
ticks were always with us; they burrowed in and made angry, venomous 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


7 


sores. These eight varieties of insects kept each of us busy during the 
balance of the campaign. The flies afterwards made it nine.” 

Ware describes the attempt of the southern statesmen to secure the 
help of the Indians in the war. In this attempt they were partly successful. 
Ware describes the fate of some of the Indian soldiers: 

“At the battle of Pea Ridge, which was fought on the 6th, 7th and 8th days 
of March, 1862, a large number of these Indians were found among the rebel 
forces. This battle, fought with grim determination on both sides, ended in 
crushing defeat for the Confederate general, his death, and the retreat and 
scatterment of the Confederate army there engaged. It so happened that 
eleven Indians were captured upon that field by persons so mild tempered 
that they spared the lives of the captives. All the other Indians were killed 
outright. When these eleven Indians were got together it was determined 
to send them North, for the purpose of (to use an expression of the day) 
‘firing the Northern heart.’ It was believed that if these Indians could be 
exhibited as being captured with arms in their hands there would be an 
immediate outpouring of sentiment which would bring to the aid of the 
army money and volunteers in increased ratio; although even at that time 
sentiment was strong, because McClellan had gathered together and or¬ 
ganized a fine army on the Potomac, which he was shortly to move, as was 
believed, to quash the Confederacy at Richmond. 

“The route from Pea Ridge to Springfield was the most dangerous part 
of the route. . The orders were to keep the strictest guard upon 

these Indians, and not let any of them escape. It was desired that all should 
be taken safely and surely to the North, so that they might be exhibited 
as a show in the northern cities, in a group. The indignation of the soldiers 
of our command towards the Indians was very great. 

“ The line of march from Springfield to Rolla lay through a timber country 
all of the distance. The prisoners were marched compactly in the road. 
In the front was a slight cavalry advance guard; along each side marched 
some of the infantry and some of the cavalry. The cavalry rode one behind 
the other, with their revolvers in their hands. In front of the prisoners was 
a little squad of infantry, to keep the prisoners from running forward, and 
back of the prisoners another squad of infantry, to make them keep up. 
Behind came the wagons. When we camped at night these prisoners were 
herded together and compelled to build a stake-and-rider fence around 
themselves every night. They all knew how to build such fences, and they 
were hurried up in doing it. It was not possible, as the march was arranged, 
for any one to attempt to escape without being shot. The Indians somehow 
began to feel that they had no sympathy, not even from their coprisoners, 
and seemed determined to take every opportunity to escape. In marching 
on the line they would always manage to occupy the positions in the line 
from which escape was easiest and least hazardous. One after another of 
these Indians made efforts to escape, but the eyes of guards and of the whole 
escort were upon the Indians, and every time that one of them made an 
attempt he lost his life. The result was that when we got to Waynesville, 
Mo., which was about twenty-eight miles from Rolla, there was only one 
Indian left, and during that night one of the guards killed him.” 

The fighting in Missouri and Arkansas was at times severe, and when 
there was no actual fighting against the southern soldiers there was fighting 


8 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


of another sort—insufficient food, poor clothing, poor shelter, no medical 
or hospital care—in short the regiment suffered all that neglected soldiers 
ever suffered. The undying wonder will always be that they held together 
and that they reenlisted at the end of their first period of service. 

After Gettysburg, in 1863, certain companies of the Seventh Iowa cavalry, 
which was now Ware’s regiment, were ordered west to fight the Indians be¬ 
tween Omaha and the mountains. In this service he continued until the 
close of the war. His story of the Indian war is a wonderful reel of wonder¬ 
ful pictures. Any picture show which will faithfully present all the pictures 
made by Ware’s pen in his Indian war book will make an unqualified success. 
I can only quote a few vivid paragraphs. The first days in Omaha were 
bad enough. He says: 

“That night there was some kind of a show in Omaha, theatrical or 
otherwise—I do not remember. It just happened, as the regiment was then 
organized, and at that particular time situated, that I, being a second 
lieutenant, was the youngest officer in rank immediately with the regiment. 
So the colonel after supper turned over the command of the regiment to the 
major, who was next; and the major turned it over to the senior captain, 
and the senior captain turned it over to some one else, and all started for 
town on horseback. Finally it got down to the lieutenants, and by eight 
o’clock my immediate superior had turned the regiment over to me. There 
was no commissioned officer to whom I could turn; they all outranked me, 
and I had to stay up and take care of the regiment while all of my seniors 
went into the city. By nine o’clock the regiment was boisterous. Reveille 
was sounded, then tatto, and afterwards ‘taps.’ By the time taps were 
sounded I found a large part of the regiment drunk, and once in a while 
some soldier with a shriek of ecstasy would fire his revolver at the moon. 
Then I would take the corporal and guard and put the man under arrest. 
In a little while I had the guard tent full, and still things were as lively as 
ever. I finally got a crowd of about twenty-five sober men and went around 
and gathered up the noisiest and set a sergeant drilling them. But they 
soon ran, helter-skelter, and the camp guards could not stop them. My 
escort and I smashed up all the whisky we could find, and finally got to 
tying the loudest ones up to the wagons with lariats, and by about eleven 
o’clock there was some semblance of order. Finally the officers began to 
string in, but I had a bad three hours.” 

On the plains the regiment met a windstorm. I do not doubt it was 
the one which later suggested the poem entitled “Zephyr,” in which the 
zephyr . . . “calmly journeyed thence, With a barn and string of 

fence. ” 

“I will recur to a windstorm that came on October 17th. The air was 
dry and arid, and a sudden wind came up in the forenoon from the north, 
unaccompanied by dampness or snow. The wind just blew, and kept in¬ 
creasing in force and momentum. All of our tents were blown down during 
the afternoon, and during the gale it was impossible to raise them. Our 
stuff was blown off from the flat ground and rolled and tumbled over until 
it struck the depression of the arroyo of Cottonwood' canyon. It was a 
straight, even wind. We soon found out what it was necessary for us to build 
in order to resist the climate. The pilgrim quarters at McDonald’s ranch 
was soon stored with what were obliged to save. Incredible as it may seem, 


Eugene Fitch Ware . 


9 


the wind blew down the stovepipe into the stove, so that it turned one of 
the covers to get exit. This heavy iron cover was about seven inches in 
diameter. When we put it back the stove rattled until again the cover 
turned over. Jimmy O’Brien said it was an ‘Irish tornado’—that the wind 
blew ‘straight up and down.’ Along in the afternoon our horses, that were 
tied up with picket rope, became frantic and began breaking away. A two- 
inch rope was torn from its moorings and the horses started up Cottonwood 
canyon. There were less than half a dozen horses that were left securely 
tied. These were immediately saddled, and soldiers detailed to corral the 
stampeded horses and to keep them together in the canyon. By using iron 
picket pins and lariat ropes some few of the tents were got up again, toward 
night, and held in place. The wind blew a gale all night, and got somewhat 
chilly. Boxes of clothing and hard b ead were rolling over the prairie, bound 
for the arroyo. We all of us slept where we best could, but most upon the 
lee bank of the canyon bed. The wind immediately subsided as the sun rose 
in the morning, and we had no more trouble with it except to gather up the 
things. The difficulty with the wind was that it carried the sand and gravel 
in the air, and made it painful and almost dangerous at times to be where the 
full effect of the current came, which was mixed with the sand and gravel.” 

One day Ware went out to kill a buffalo: 

“ The time that I had with that buffalo in the canyon I 

shall not soon forget. He chased me a great deal more than I chased him. 
The matted hair upon his forehead was filled with mud, and he faced me at 
all times. My revolver bullets glanced off from his forehead apparently as 
if it were a piece of granite, and they only seemed to irritate him. It was 
fully two hours before I laid him out, and I had fired thirty-one shots.” 

It is difficult to imagine a more vivid picture than that of Ware in pursuit 
of buffalo or Indians on the horse he loved best. He says: 

“ . . I had two horses, one a good, average cavalry horse, but I 

managed to become the owner of a large, raw-boned iron-gray horse. 

I got him before coming to Nebraska, and paid $135 for him. The horse 
formerly belonged to Colonel Baker of the Second Iowa Infantry, who was 
killed in the battle of Pittsburg Landing. The horse was not afraid of fire¬ 
arms nor musketry. He had a mouth that was as tough as the forks of a 
cottonwood log, and I had to use a large curb bit on him, with an iron bar 
under the jaw, made by our company blacksmith. Without this terrible 
curb I could do nothing with him. He was afraid of nothing but a buffalo, 
and as a wild buffalo is more dangerous than a bear, I was always afraid 
that some time he would act bad and get me hurt. He was also very much 
frightened at even the smell of a buffalo robe. This large iron-gray horse 
would start out on a dead run for Gilman’s ranch, and keep it up for fifteen 
miles without halting. I never saw a horse with more endurance or more of 
a desire to go, and he kept himself lean by his efforts and energy. I knew 
that when I was on his back no Indian pony nor band of Indians could over¬ 
take me, and hence I scouted the country without apprehension.” 

As illustrating Ware’s remarkable talent for understanding and remem¬ 
bering mechanical details, I quote his account of gun practice written nearly 
half a century after the occurrence: 

“Along on the side of the hill west of our post, and about five hundred 
yards from it, we put up a palisade of logs sunk in the ground, and forming 


10 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


an eight-foot square target. I practiced with our howitzers upon this target 
until I got the exact range and capacity of the two guns. They varied but 
little. We had to know how far the guns would shoot, and the number of 
seconds on which to cut our shell fuses. Our powder was separate, 

in red flannel-bag cartridges, so made as to fit the rear chamber of the gun, 
which was smaller than the caliber. Attached to the schrapnel shell was a 
wooden block made accurately to fit the bore of the piece. The powder 
was first rammed down, and then the shell rammed down on the wooden 
block, which was called a ‘sabot.’ The sabot was merely a wad. The fuse 
of the shell was toward the muzzle of the gun. The explosion of the powder 
went around the shell and ignited the fuse in front of it. The gun was fired 
with what were called ‘friction primers,’ which, being inserted in the touch- 
hole and connected with the lanyard, were pulled off, and threw the fire down 
into the cartridge. But before the friction primer was put in a ‘priming- 
wire’ was thrust down to punch a hole through the flannel bag of the car¬ 
tridge. The process of loading was somewhat complicated for so simple a 
gun. One man brought the powder cartridge and inserted it, and it was 
rammed home by another man with a wooden rammer. Then another 
brought the shell with sabot attachment, and that was immediately ram¬ 
med down, sabot first. Another man used the priming-wire and inserted 
the friction primer. The chief of the piece then sighted the gun and gave 
the signal to the man who held the lanyard. The schrapnel was made as an 
iron shell about five-eighths of an inch thick, with an orifice of about an 
inch and a half, on which the thread of a screw was cut. Then the shell was 
filled with round leaden balls, and in the interstices melted sulphur was 
poured. Then a hole was bored down an inch and a half in diameter through 
the bullets behind the open part, and this was filled with powder, leaving the 
sulphur and lead arranged around the powder; then the fuse was screwed in. 
The utmost angle of safety in firing the howitzer was fifteen degrees. Any¬ 
thing more than that was liable to spring or break the axle on the recoil. 
At an angle of fifteen degrees, unless the trail was fixed properly, the piece 
was liable to turn a summerset. After a great deal of experiment of the 
two pieces I prepared a little schedule of distances and seconds, which I 
furnished to my sergeants. All of the sergeants were instructed in sighting 
the piece and in cutting the fuse. The fuse was a tin disc, and was cut with 
a three-cornered little hand chisel. My experiments differed somewhat in 
result from the artillery manual, but was accurate in regard to the two 
particular pieces. . . ” 

Additional gun practice is described as follows: 

“Well, Corporal Churubusco said that what made a gun kick was—what 
every old Mexican soldier knew—there was space in the barrel behind the 
touchhole; that the fire from the cap went into the barrel too far forward. 
We then proceeded to fill in the barrel at the bottom, according to his sug¬ 
gestions. A silver dime just fitted the barrel, but silver dimes had dis¬ 
appeared from circulation. Nevertheless I managed to get one, and then 
another and then another, until I had rammed down six of them. But the 
gun kicked apparently as hard as ever; and then I wanted the silver out— 
that is, I wanted my money back—but that was an impossibility; the 
discharge had swaged the silver down and brazed it to the barrel. The gun 
continued to kick like ‘sixty’ (the number of cents which I had rammed 


Eugene Fitch Ware . 


11 


down). We all named our guns; the boys generally named them after their 
pet girls—it was ‘Hannah,’ or ‘Mary Jane,’ or something else. I named 
mine ‘Silver Sue.’ ” 

Here is a striking paragraph showing the nature of some of the duties that 
fell to patriotic officers on duty in the field: 

“ Captain O’Brien got the company together [at the mouth of 

Cottonwood canon, Nebraska] at noon on election day, and made them a 
speech. So did I. It wasn’t very much of a speech, only I told them we 
couldn’t afford to let Iowa get into the hands of the Copperheads, because 
then they would stop recruiting and try to bring the war to a close. We made 
the speeches a little bit bitter, and got the men worked up pretty thoroughly. 
I was the election officer who was to receive and count and forward the 
ballots. The captain was as ardent as I was, and a better talker. I was 
pleasantly surprised that the men stayed with us; only eight voted the op¬ 
posite ticket. Captain O’Brien was much delighted. I made every effort 
to find out from among the boys who it was that voted those eight votes. 
It was, of course, somewhat difficult to find out, but I think five of the eight 
became deserters, and of the other three one was killed by whisky, and two 
had poor military records. Assisted by the soldier vote, the state of Iowa 
was saved and retained in the ranks of loyal states. On looking back it 
seems to me strange how hard we had to fight, and yet how much exertion 
we had to put forth to control those in the rear so that we could be per¬ 
mitted to put down the rebellion. As I look back on it I don’t see how it 
was that the Union was saved; and I can not comprehend, although I was in 
the middle of it, how it was that we managed to keep things going until the 
end came, in a satisfactory manner.” 

Here is a touch of romance such as came to many soldiers: 

“Turning from the subject of Indians to another far more interesting, 
I will relate an occurence that happened early in March; but I must go 
back into the past. I had been with the first army of General Curtis that 
marched down through Arkansas from Pea Ridge to Helena in 1862. We 
arrived at Helena, on the Mississippi river, shortly after the river was 
opened up by the gunboats at Memphis, the bombardment of which we 
heard over in Arkansas. As the rebel gunboats were chased down the river 
the transports came from the North, and, as we were quite ragged, clothing 
was issued to us, and I drew a government blouse. In the pocket of this 
blouse, August, 1862, at Helena, Ark., I found a letter substantially in these 
words: ‘I would like to know where this blouse is going to. If the brave 
soldier who gets it will let me know I will be very much obliged to him.’ 

It was signed Louisa J. B-. The letter was from a town that was one 

of the suburbs of New York City, in New Jersey. I immediately answered 
it, although the blouse had been some time coming, and a correspondence 
grew up which had run considerably more than a year. The correspondence 
consisted of my detailing matters concerning the campaigns that I was in, 
and the military duties which I was performing. The answers from New 
Jersey consisted in telling briefly what the newspapers said about the pro¬ 
gress of the war and the actions of the President. About the first of March, 
1864, I received a very nice letter, in which the writer said that she was the 
mother of the young lady who had written me. ... It was one of the 
nicest letters ever written; it produced a very great impression on me. I 



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had a sister of my own whom I thought a great deal of, and I couldn’t help 
thinking that I would feel the same way if she were writing to some one 
under the same circumstances. After cogitating over the letter I returned 
it to her, telling her that all correspondence so far had been destroyed, which 
was the fact; that I had only the last letter, which I returned herewith; 
that I appreciated her feelings exactly, because I had relatives of my own; 
and that I would assure her that the correspondence was ended. About a 
month or more after that I received all my letters back from the young 
lady, and they were fragrant with roses, and had pencil marks, underscored 
sentences, and query marks on the edges, and all that sort of thing. After 
reading them consecutively through from one end to the other, I placed them 
gently upon the cedar coals while the aroma floated out upon the thirsty 
air. And that was the last of the episode, for I have never heard of any of 
the persons since; and as nearly fifty years have now elapsed I probably 
never will. I never interested myself further in the matter. There was 
another girl.” 

Many people have wondered how a telegraph line could stay in order a 
day in the Indian country. Ware explains: 

“ . .. . It may be thought strange that the Indians did not secretly 

destroy the telegraph line. There were a number of strange stories con¬ 
nected with it, and with Indian experience. In order to give the Indians a 
profound respect for the wire, chiefs had formerly been called in and had 
been told to make up a story and then separate. When afterwards the story 
was told to one operator where one chief was present, it was told at another 
station to the other chief in such a way as to produce the most stupendous 
dread. No effort was made to explain it to the Indians upon any scientific 
principle, but it was given the appearance of a black and diabolical art. 
The Indians were given some electric shocks, and every conceivable plan 
to make them afraid of the wire was indulged in by the officers and em¬ 
ployees of the company, it being much to their financial advantage to make 
the Indian dread the wire. 

“About a year before we were there a party of Indian braves crossed 
the line up by O’Fallon’s Bluffs, and one Indian who had been down in ‘The 
States, ’ as it was called, and thought he understood it, volunteered to show 
his gang that they must not be afraid of it, and that it was a good thing to 
have the wire up in their village to lariat poines to. So he chopped down a 
pole, severed the wire, and began ripping it off the poles. They concluded 
to take it north with them, up to their village on the Blue Water river, about 
as much as they could easily drag. It was during the hot summer weather. 
They cut off nearly a half-mile of wire, and all of the Indians, in single file 
on horseback, catching hold of the wire, proceeded to ride and pull the wire 
across the prairie towards their village. After they had gone several miles 
and were going over the ridge they were overtaken by an electric storm, 
and as they were rapidly traveling, dragging the wire, by some means or 
other a bolt of lightning, so the story goes, knocked almost all of them off 
their horses and hurt some of them considerably. Thereupon they dropped 
the wire, and coming to the conclusion that it was punishment for their acts 
and that it was ‘bad medicine,’ they afterwards let it alone. The story of it, 
being quite wonderful, circulated with great rapidity among the Indians, and 
none of them could ever afterwards be found who would tamper with the 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


13 


wire. They would cut down a pole and use the wood for cooking, but they 
stayed clear of the wire, and the operation of the telegraph was thus very 
rarely obstructed.” 

A tear and a smile follow this story of the homesick soldier: 

“There is in all military bodies a feeling of homesickness, much more 
aggravated in some than in others, but which once in a while breaks out 
and becomes contagious. We had several spells in our company in which 
the men became homesick. In fact, almost as soon as we reached Cotton¬ 
wood Springs, in October, 1863, and camped upon the bleak and desolate 
land, some of the boys nearly broke down. One of them I remember parti¬ 
cularly, and I felt very sorry for him. He was a German named Hakel, over 
twenty-one years of age. He had a sweetheart in Dubuque, Iowa. Some¬ 
thing must have gone wrong, because he got a case called in military medi¬ 
cine ‘nostalgia,’ and he drooped around and seemed to take no interest in 
much of anything. He wouldn’t even interest himself in the taste of the 
fine old whisky which I got from Fort Kearney. One day he said that he 
believed he would go down to the bank of the river and clean his revolver. 
There was no need of his going to that place; but he did go to the place, 
and shortly after we heard the sound of a firing, and on investigation he had 
killed himself. It was impossible to tell whether he had done it accidentally 
or not. But I made up my mind that the proper thing to do was to give 
him the benefit of the doubt, and it being my duty to report the fact to 
headquarters, I did so, and the way I reported it was quite brief. I gave 
his name and full description, and I stated the cause of death to be ‘acci- 
ental suicide.’ I thought the term ‘accidental suicide’ was about as brief 
as I could make it. The colonel of^our regiment was an aged lawyer from 
an Iowa village. He immediately directed the regimental adjutant to 
return the report to me for correction, saying there was no such thing as 
‘accidental suicide.’ This illustrates the littleness of so many officers. The 
great affairs of the regiment, their supplies, drill and efficiency, were taken 
little or no notice of. Except for the meddling at long intervals, we hardly 
knew we had a colonel. In this case this was the first time I had heard from 
the colonel for a long while. But he claimed to be a lawyer, and he claimed 
that there was no such thing as ‘ accidental suicide. ’ So in my second report 
I described the death with a circumlocution that I think must have given 
him a pain. I described the death in about the words of a legal indictment, 
and stated that Hakel had come to his death from the impact of a leaden 
bullet, calibrer 44, propelled by a charge of powder contained in the chamber 
of a Colt’s revolver, caliber 44, number 602,890, which pistol was held, 
at 3:45 p. m. of said day, in the right hand of the said Hakel. I also set 
forth that the discharge of the said revolver was not intentional, but was 
an involuntary action on the part of the said Hakel, etc., etc. I managed to 
describe accurately and with considerable minuteness the portions of his 
shape through which the bullet went, and the result. The colonel down 
at Fort Kearney, where he was then located, had made considerable fun of 
my statement of ‘accidental suicide,’ and I had received privately some 
letters containing his wise and oracular disquisitions upon the English 
language. So, when I afterwards sent a copy of my second report to some 
of the officers, it tickled them very much, but it produced a bad feeling 
between the colonel and me; I had more friends in the regiment than he had. 


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Kansas State Historical Society. 


Some time afterwards, the strength of the regiment having been reduced by 
casualties to a number slightly below the minimum, concerning which no 
notice would have been taken except for the general opinion in which the 
colonel was held, he was mustered out. We shed no tears.” 

While in the Indian country Ware saw numerous celebrities; among them 
Artemus Ward: 

“In March, 1864, while we were at the post, Artemus Ward, the great 
humorist, came through on a coach; and hearing that he was coming, 
Captain O’Brien and I went to the coach to greet him. It was late in the 
afternoon. The first thing he did was to ask us to go and take a drink with 
him, and Boyer’s was the saloon. Artemus Ward went in, with us following 
him, and said, ‘What have you got to drink here?’ Boyer said, ‘Nothing 
but bitters.’ Ward said, ‘What kind of bitters?’ Boyer said, ‘I have got 
nothing but Hostetter; some trains went by here and they cleaned me out 
of everything but Hostetter.’ So Ward said, ‘Give us some Hostetter,’ 
and the bottle was shoved out on the cedar counter. We took a drink with 
Ward, who told us about some Salt Lake experience he had recently had. 
In a little while the driver shouted for him to get aboard. Ward turned to 
Boyer, and he says, ‘How much Hostetter have you got?’ Boyer looked 
under his counter and said, ‘ I had a case of two dozen bottles, which I opened 
this afternoon, and that is all I have got, and I have used up five of them. ’ 
Said Artemus War, ‘I have got to have eighteen of those bottles.’ Boyer 
said, ‘That only leaves me one bottle.’ Ward said, ‘It don’t make any 
difference; your mathematics are all right, but I want eighteen of those 
bottles.’ The bottles sold for $1.50. Ward said, ‘I will give you $2 a bottle.’ 
In a short time the money had been paid. Ward went to the coach with the 
box of eighteen bottles under his arm, and we bade him an affectionate 
adieu. The crowded coach greated him with cheers, and I have no doubt 
that they finished the whole business before morning, on the coach.” 

Another man who afterwards became famous in the business world was 
one of Ware’s closest friends: 

“During April a vacancy as second lieutenant took place at Fort Kearney, 
in company A. The first sergeant, Tom Potter, and I had been friends, and 
I had been working to help him get into the vacancy, and during April I 
was very much grieved to hear that he had failed in being commissioned. 
This Tom Potter finally became an officer of the company. Our relations 
were exceedingly friendly, but at this time he had no money, few friends, 
and no relatives. There was nobody to help him. He was alone in the 
world, and promotions did not always go upon their merits. Our friendship 
lasted for many years, until his death. He afterwards became president of 
the Union Pacific Railroad at fifty thousand dollars a year, and worked 
himself to death. But in the very height of his powers in the army he was 
unable to become second lieutenant, owing to the petty little rivalries and 
dishonest instincts of his superiors, until long afterwards.” 

In these times millions of passengers crossed the plains annually. In 
the old days a heavy business meant only a few people: 

“One day a discussion grew up as to the amount of travel on the plains. 
Those who had lived on the plains for some time said that the travel from 
January 1st to April 1st, 1864, had been the heaviest ever on the plains, for 
that season of the year, and that the probability was that the year 1864 would 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


15 


show more travel by far than ever before. Various persons began to tell 
about the trains which they had seen. Many persons told of trains that 
were from ten to fifteen miles long, being aggregations of several independent 
trains. They told of eight hundred ox teams passing their ranches in a single 
day. Mrs. MacDonald, the wife of the ranchman at our post, said she had 
many times kept account of the number of wagons which went by, and 
that one day they went up to nine hundred, counting those going both 
ways. That may sound like a very large story, and it is a large one, but is 
entirely credible. These ox terns would pass a store in their slow gait about 
one in a minute and a half or two minutes, after they had begun to start by. 
But that would only make three to four hundred in ten hours; but when 
trains were going both ways, as they were, it is not incredible by any means 
that nine hundred wagons passed a ranch in one day. I have stood on the 
‘Sioux Lookout’ with my field glass, and have seen a train as long as I could 
definitely distinguish it with my glass, and it would stretch out until it 
would become so fine that it was impossible to fairly scan it. As the wind 
was generally blowing either from the north or the south, the teams had a 
vast prism of dust rising either to the north or south, and the dust would 
be in the air mile after mile until the dust and teams both reached the vanish¬ 
ing-point on the horizon.” 

Here is a compact statement of the case of the government in its capacity 
as guardian for the Indians: 

‘‘The Indian policy of the government was necessarily crude. The 
Indians were powerful, quite free, and fond of devilment; yet between them 
there was not much coherence, owing to rivalries and feuds. They were 
divided into bands under the control and leadership of favorite chiefs, who 
often envied and hated each other. Hence it was that we would not mistreat 
any Indian without taking the chances of making trouble; thus, if an Indian 
would suddenly appear at our post we could not kill him or imprison him 
or treat him as an enemy, because the particular Indian had done nothing 
that we could prove as an overt act. As far as the Sioux were concerned 
we had to keep on the defensive, because some of the Sioux chiefs were 
trying their best to keep their bands and young men from acts of war. It 
was cheaper to feed the Indians than to fight them, and the constant efforts 
of the commanding officers were to make treaties of peace; which resulted 
practically in our buying privileges and immunities from them. The de¬ 
mands of the Civil War, which was straining the nation’s resources, added 
much to the difficulties of the occasion. So we were in an attitude all the 
time of about half war and half peace with the Indian tribes. We could not 
punish them adequately for what they did, nor could they drive us off from 
the Platte valley. We let them alone if they kept out of our way, and they 
let us alone when the danger seemed too great. Of all the Indians in our 
territory the Cheyennes seemed to have the least, sense; they lacked judg¬ 
ment, and were entirely unreliable. The pioneers placed the Arapahoes 
next. For respecting treaty obligations, the pioneers placed the Brule Sioux 
at the head of all the northwestern Indians.” 

This little chapter illustrates well the power of one mind over many when 
one has nerve: 

‘‘A man had come in, about a mile below Julesburg, which itself was a 
mile below our post, had repaired up and rebuilt and put in shape a two- 


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Kansas State Historical Society. 


room sod house, and he had been running a whisky establishment, patronized 
by pilgrims, in the first room, and a poker establishment in the rear room. 
He had been afraid to sell any whisky to the soldiers, and he had not been 
discovered. But shortly before Christmas he had been joined by another 
bandit, and they had begun selling whisky to the soldiers and cheating them 
out of their money playing 'poker in the back room. This went on for two 
or three days, until the first thing I knew there had been a lot of my men 
down there having a row with a lot of pilgrims, and having a shooting-match 
with these two proprietors, who needed killing as badly as any two men on 
the Platte river. 

“The next thing that I heard was that these two bandits had attempted 
to kill and rob one of my men, had cheated a lot of them out of their money, 
and that there was a posse of my company going down to kill them both. 
I could hardly believe the stories that were told me privately by the non¬ 
commissioned officers and by some of the men who knew all about the 
proposed plan. It was given to me one afternoon between Christmas and 
New Year’s that some of the boys in the company were going to go down 
and lynch these two ranchmen (as they called themselves). Finally I heard 
that it was to be the night of the 29th. Captain O’Brien and First Lieutenant 
Brewer, the quartermaster, had both gone to Cottonwood Springs, as stated, 
to make requisition and receipt for horses, and I was left all alone, and I 
was told that night they were going to lynch those two men sure, and that 
both of them were rebel deserters. 

“Nobody seemed to understand the extent of the plot, nor how many 
there were in it, but from what I could learn, all the toughest characters 
in my company had, by a sort of Masonic secrecy, planned to work together. 
That evening at roll-call, while the men were all drawn up in line, I told them 
that there had been rumors that some of them were going out of the camp 
that night and were going to commit some depredations. I told them that 
if that should take place, and any citizen would be killed, that it would 
result in my being dismissed from the service as being unable to command 
my company; that I did not intend to be dismissed from the service; that 
I did not intend to let anybody go down the road and commit any impro¬ 
priety. And I told them that, in view of the fact, I would change the guard 
somewhat to-night, and there would be a little stronger detail than before. 

“After the company disbanded the orderly sergeant came to me and 
told me that he believed the whole matter had been abandoned and that 
there would be no trouble. But I was fearful of it, and while I did not think 
that there should be any real reason why I should prevent the two bandits 
being lynched, I knew that I could never explain it, and that it was my 
military duty to see that it did not happen. 

“I selected particular camp guards for that night, and put them out¬ 
side of the post, one on each of the four sides. Before the guards were set 
I called them into my headquarters and told them that I expected that there 
would be some men start out to commit some devilment that night below 
the station. I told them that I wanted them to keep close guard that the 
men did not run past in bulk or did not slip out one by one and join them¬ 
selves together down the road. I also told the corporal of the guard that I 
wanted him to report to me every thirty minutes. Along about eleven 
o’clock the corporal of the guard came to me and told me that two men 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


17 


certainly had slipped out during the night, and had been seen. I immediately 
called my orderly and had him saddle up my black pony, of which I will 
speak more hereafter. I immediately went into the barracks to see how 
many of the men were on hand, and I found ten of them gone. I had the 
pony tied up in front of the office while I got my carbine and revolver loaded 
with some cartridges, and a pocketful of crackers to eat. 

“Just as I had got about ready to start the corporal of the guard came 
in and said that there was about a dozen more of the boys that had run the 
guards. So I got onto my pony, and not desiring to give them any clue to 
my coming, I rode out in a big circle on the prairie as fast as I could go, so 
as to get ahead of them. It was a long ride. Coming dowfi to about a 
hundred yards of Julesburg station, I got down to the ground, and in the 
darkness I heard and dimly saw a large squad of the men walking on down 
at a route step towards me. I had got in ahead of them in the dark. 

“I rode up towards them until I got within about two hundred feet of 
them, and I cried ‘Halt!’ and dismounted from my pony and raised my 
carbine. They huddled together, and came more slowly. Finally I again 
ordered them to halt, and told them that I wanted them to stay halted until 
they heard what I had to say. They halted in silence. I told them that I 
knew what they were after; that it was a crime which they proposed to com¬ 
mit; that they had no right to kill rebels that way; that if I permitted it I 
would be unfit to command the company; that I didn’t propose to let them 
go any farther; that I would shoot the first man that got up near enough 
for me to draw a bead on him; that if they started to run around me I would 
get as many of them as I could with my carbine; that I wanted them to 
stay together; that I wanted them to turn about face and march back to 
the post. They remained still, and commenced whispering to each other. 
I then threw the bridle rein around my pony’s neck, gave him a kick, and off 
he started back to the post. I heard a revolver click, and then I clicked my 
carbine, brought it up to my eye, pointed it in the midst; they were about 
forty feet from me. I said, ‘You can not shoot so quickly that I can not 
get one of you. Now make up your minds to go back, because there is where 
you are going. There is no hurry about it; take plenty of time, but decide 
it right. You are not going a foot farther down the river to-night.’ I held 
the carbine up to my eye; I pointed at the group, and I kept holding it. It 
seemed a long while. I knew the men could make a rush, but they could not 
keep me from shooting at least one of them, and as I had two revolvers in 
my belt, both of them cocked, I knew that I was as safe as any of them. 
I knew that if they had time they would come to the right conclusion. They 
did not want to hurt me. Finally, after a very long pause, I heard one of 
them say, ‘Well, let’s go back,’ and they began turning around and start¬ 
ing back. I followed them, and I said, ‘ Quick time—march, ’ and the speed 
became more rapid. Finally I said, after we had gone a while, ‘Double— 
quick—march,’ and they all started off on the run. And they ran away 
from me for the reason, which I did not think of, that they wanted to get 
up into the post, and perhaps far enough ahead of me to evade identification. 
I was weighted down so with lunch, overcoat, revolvers, carbine and am¬ 
munition that I could not keep up, and they got ahead of me. The sentinel 
ordered them to stop, but they ran right over him, and he, disinclined to kill 
any of his comrades, let them go. My pony had come back to the post.” 


—2 


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Kansas State Historical Society. 


Indian cleverness and soldierly courage are well illustrated in the following: 

“A little while before sundown I noticed a motionless Indian on horse¬ 
back over in the bottom across the river from the fort, and I thought I would 
go and see what effect I could make on him with my target rifle. I started 
to walk from the post down towards the river, the boys of the post being out, 
ready to furnish me any protection I might need. The Indian on the other 
bank of the river dismounted and left his horse and started walking toward 
me. He finally stooped down in the grass, which was quite heavy, but I 
could plainly see him. By throwing up the sights of my target, I pulled on 
him, but the bullet fell short, as I could see by the dust which rose where it 
struck. I had scarcely fired my gun when the Indian fired, and a bullet 
went whizzing over my head in a way so familiar that I knew it to be a 
Belgian riflemusket. I had heard them often down south. I then made 
three quick shots, to see if I could reach the Indian, but my rifle would not 
carry to him. I began to march obliquely back to the post, going somewhat 
to the left, so as to change the Indian’s line of fire, but he got in two shots 
on me before I got back to the post, to which I went in a leisurely but some¬ 
what interested way. The Indian had a better gun that I had—that is to 
say, one that would shoot farther—and I knew that the gun was one which 
had been furnished from some military command. The Indians did not 
buy Belgian muskets. This man had been standing out there making a 
target of himself so as to get somebody to come out and fire at him, and I 
had done exactly what he wanted me to do, and he had got three good shots 
at me before I was through with him. And I had to thank my stars that 
it was no worse.” 

Few more touching stories have ever been told than Ware’s account of 
Ah-ho-appa, the daughter of Shan-tag-a-lisk, the Sioux chief: 

“It is the object of this brief article to tell the true story of an Indian 
girl and what happened to her. But in order that a comprehension may be 
had, by the reader, of the girl and her situation, it is necessary to go into 
some detail as to Sioux Indian life and history. It is also necessary to give 
some details of the Sioux nation as to its customs and geographical location, 
past and present; for without these facts the life and character of the Indian 
girl referred to can not be understood. 

“Her name was Ah-ho-appa, the Sioux name for wheaten flour. It was 
the whitest thing they knew. She had other names, as Indian women often 
have, but when the writer first saw her she was called Ah-ho-appa. How 
she got the name is forgotten. 

“Her father’s name, Shan-tag-a-lisk, meant ‘Spotted Tail’; some of the 
Indians pronounced it ‘ Than-tag-a-liska. ’ He was one of the greatest 
chiefs the Sioux nation ever had. In order to explain him and what follows, 
it is best to give a brief description of the Indian question as relates to the 
Sioux nation at the time of the Civil War. 

“At Laramie half-breed runners were sent out to bring in the Sioux and 
have an adjustment of pending difficulties, but the raid upon the line west 
of Laramie and the warlike feeling of the young men of the Sioux made it a 
failure. Nevertheless, some of the Indians came in, and Shan-tag-a-lisk 
was said to be within a hundred miles of the post with many lodges of his 
band. On consultation at the sutler’s store it was considered best to issue 
provisions to all the Indians who came in, especially as Shan-tag-a-lisk was 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


19 


keeping his band and his young Indians out of the war. It was thought 
best to make some presents to the Indian women who* came in, and the 
post commander was instructed to do so from the post fund. The Indian 
women were presented with red blankets, bright calicoes, looking-glasses, 
etc., etc. The writer, as adjutant of the post, superintended, by order of 
the post commander, a distribution of provisions. All of the Indian women 
and children sat down in a circle on the parade ground, into the middle of 
which were rolled barrels and boxes of flour, crackers, bacon and coffee. 
Then from the few Indian men two or three were selected who entered the 
ring and made the division with great solemnity, going around the ring 
repeatedly with small quantities of the several articles that were being 
divided. My instructions were to see that everything was fairly done and 
all the supplies equally divided. 

“As I came up to the ring, on the day of the first division, an Indian girl 
was standing outside of the ring, looking on. She was tall and well dressed, 
and about eighteen years of age, or perhaps twenty. As the distribution 
was about to begin I went to her and told her to get into the ring, and mo¬ 
tioned to her where to go. She gave no sign of heed, looked at me as im¬ 
passively as if she were a statue, and never moved a muscle. A few teamsters, 
soldiers and idlers were standing around and looking on from a respectful 
distance. I shouted to Smith, the interpreter, to come. He came, and 
I said to him, ‘ Tell this squaw to get into the ring or she will lose her share. ’ 
Smith addressed her, and she replied. Smith looked puzzled, sort of smiled, 
and spoke to her again; again she replied as before. ‘What does she say?’ 
I asked of Smith. Smith replied, ‘ Oh, she says she is the daughter of Shan- 
tag-a-lisk.’ ‘I don’t care,’ said I, ‘whose daughter she'is; tell her to get 
into the ring and get in quick. ’ Again Smith talked to her, and impatiently 
gestured. She made a reply. ‘What did she say?’ I asked. ‘Oh, she says 
that she don’t go into the ring,’ said Smith. ‘Then tell her,’ I said, ‘that if 
she doesn’t go into the ring she won’t get anything to eat.’ Back from her, 
through Smith, came the answer: ‘I have plenty to eat; I am the daughter 
of Shan-tag-a-lisk. ’ So I left her alone, and she stood and saw the division, 
and then went off to the Indian camp. Several times rations were distri¬ 
buted during the week, and she always came and stood outside of the ring 
alone. During the daytime she came to the sutler’s store and sat on a bench 
outside, near the door, watching as if she were living on the sights she saw. 
She was particularly fond of witnessing guard mount in the morning and 
dress parade in the evening. Whoever officiated principally on these occa¬ 
sions put on a few extra touches for her special benefit, at the suggestion of 
Major Wood, the post commander. The officer of the guard always ap¬ 
peared in an eighteen-dollar red silk sash, ostrich plume, shoulder straps, 
and about two hundred dollars’ worth of astonishing raiment, such as, in 
the field, we boys used to look upon with loathing and contempt. We all 
knew her by sight, but she never spoke to any of us. Among ourselves we 
called her ‘the princess.’ She was looking, always looking, as if she were 
feeding upon what she saw. It was a week or ten days that Ah-ho-appa 
was around Fort Laramie. At last she went away with her band up to 
Powder river. Her manner of action was known to all, and she was frequently 
referred to as an Indian girl of great dignity. Some thought she was acting 
vain, and some thought that she did not know or comprehend her own 


20 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


manner. There was no silly curiosity in her demeanor. She saw everything, 
but asked no questions. She expressed no surprise, and exhibited not a 
particle of emotion. She only gazed intently. 

“One evening in the sutler’s store the officers of parts of three regiments 
were lounging, when Elston was asked if he knew Ah-ho-appa. ‘Very well 
indeed,’ he said; and then he proceeded to say: 

“ ‘I knew her when she was a baby. She was here in the squaw camp 
eight or nine years ago, and must have stayed with her relatives here two or 
three years. She is very much stuck up, expecially in the last four or five 
years. She won’t marry an Indian; she always said that. Her father has 
been offered two hundred ponies for her, but won’t sell her. She says she 
won’t marry anybody but a “capitan,” and that idea sort of pleases her 
father, for more reasons than one. Among the Indians every officer, big or 
little, with shoulder straps on, is a “capitan.” That’s a Spanish word the 
Indians have adopted. Every white man that wears shoulder straps is a 
capitan. With her it’s a capitan or nobody. She always carries a knife, 
and is as strong as a mule. One day a Blackfoot soldier running with her 
father’s band tried to carry her off, but she fought and cut him almost to 
pieces—like to have killed him; tickled her father nearly to death. The 
young bucks seem to think a good deal of her, but are all afraid to tackle her. 
The squaws all know about her idea of marrying a capitan; they think her 
head is level, but don’t believe she will ever make it. She tried to learn to 
read and speak English once of a captured boy, but the boy escaped before 
she got it. She carries around with her a little bit of a red book, with a gold 
cross printed on it, that General Harney gave her mother many years ago. 
She’s got it wrapped up in a parfleche [piece of dressed rawhide]. You ought 
to hear her talk when she is mad. She is a holy terror. She tells the Indians 
they are all fools for not living in houses and making peace with the whites. 
One time she and her father went in to Jack Morrow’s ranch and made a 
visit. She was treated in fine style, and ate a bushel of candy and sardines, 
but her father was insulted by some drunken fellow and went away boiling 
mad. When he got home to his tepee he said he never would go around 
any more where there were white men, except to kill them. She and her 
father got into a regular quarrel over it, and she pulled out her knife and 
began cutting herself across the arms and ribs, and in a minute she was 
bleeding in about forty places, and said that if he didn’t say different she 
was going to kill herself. He knocked her down as cold as a wedge, and had 
her cuts fixed up by the squaws with pine pitch; and when she came to he 
promised her that she could go, whenever he did, to see the whites. And 
she went; you bet she went. She would dress just like a buck and carry a 
gun. White men would not know the difference. They can’t get her to tan 
buckskin or gather buffalo fuel. No sir. There was a teamster down at 
Bardeaux ranch that wanted to talk marry to her, but his moustache was 
too white.’ (In the old folklore of the plains a man’s liver was supposed to 
be of the color of his mustache. So the speaker meant that the teamster 
was white-livered, hence cowardly.) 

“Let us now visit Powder river, far north of Laramie. It was a cold 
and dismal day in February, about the 23d, 1866. Ah-ho-appa was stricken 
with consumption, and she was living in a chilly and lonesome tepee among 
the pines on the west bank of the river. She had not seen a white person 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


21 


since her visit to Laramie in August, 1864. During this time there had been 
a continuous state of war along the routes. Most of the Indians were in¬ 
volved in hostilities that seemed unlikely to ever end, except with the exter¬ 
mination of one party or the other. But Shan-tag-a-lisk kept out of it as 
much as he could. His camp had been moved backwards and forwards all 
over the Big Horn, Rosebud and Tongue river country, and was again on 
the Powder river, not far from where the three hundred horses of the Seventh 
Iowa cavalry perished in a September snowstorm. Ah-ho-appa’s heart 
was broken. She could not stand up against her surroundings. In vain her 
father had urged her to accept the conditions as they were, to be happy and 
contented and not to worry about things out of her reach. But she could 
not. The object of her life was beyond her reach. She had an ambition— 
a vague one; but her hopes were gone. Shortly before her death a runner 
from Laramie announced to the Indians on Powder river that commissioners 
would come with the grass, who would bring the words of the Great Father 
to his Indian children. Shan-tag-a-lisk was urged to send runners to all 
the bands south and west of the Missouri river, and to meet at Laramie as 
soon as their ponies could live on the grass. Ah-ho-appa heard the news, 
but it came too late. It did not revive her. She told her father that she 
wanted to go, but she would be dead; that it was her wish to be buried in 
the cemetery at Fort Laramie, where the soldiers were buried, up on the 
hill, near the grave of Old Smoke, a distant relative and a great chief among 
the Sioux in former years. This her relatives promised her. 

“When her death took place, after great lamentations among the band, 
the skin of a deer freshly killed was held over the fire and thoroughly per¬ 
meated and creosoted with smoke. Ah-ho-appa was wrapped in it, and it 
was tightly bound around her with thongs, so that she was temporarily 
embalmed. Shan-tag-a-lisk sent a runner to announce that he was coming, 
in advance of the commissioners, to bury his daughter at Laramie. It was 
a distance of 260 miles. 

“The landscape was bleak and frozenly arid, the streams were covered 
with ice, and the hills speckled with snow. The trail was rougfr and moun¬ 
tainous. The two white ponies of Ah-ho-appa were tied together, side by side, 
and the body placed upon them. Shan-tag-a-lisk, with a party of his principal 
warriors and a number of the women, started off on the sad journey. When 
they camped at night the cottonwood and willow trees were cut down and the 
ponies browsed on the tops of the trees and gnawed the wood and bark. 
For nearly a week of the trip there was a continual sleet. The journey 
lasted for fifteen days, and was monotonous with lamentation. 

“When within fifteen miles of Fort Laramie at camp, a runner announced 
to Colonel Maynadier the approach of the procession. Colonel Maynadier 
was a natural prince, a good soldier, and a judge of Indian character. He 
was colonel of the First U. S. volunteers. The post commander was Major 
George M. O’Brien, a graduate of Dublin University, afterwards brevetted 
to the rank of General. His honored grave is now in the beautiful cemetery 
at' Omaha. 

“A consultation was held among the officers, and an ambulance dis¬ 
patched, guarded by a company of cavalry in full uniform, followed by two 
twelve-pound mountain howitzers, with postilions in red chevrons. The 
body was placed in the ambulance, and behind it were led the girl’s two 
white ponies. 


22 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


“When the cavalcade had reached the river, a couple of miles from the 
post, the garrison turned out, and, with Colonel Maynadier at the head, 
met and escorted them into the post, and the party were assigned quarters. 
The next day a scaffold was erected near the grave of Old Smoke. It was 
made of tent poles twelve feet long, imbedded in the ground and fastened 
with thongs, over which a buffalo robe was laid, and on which the coffin 
was to be placed. To the poles of the scaffold were nailed the heads and tails 
of the two white ponies, so that Ah-ho-appa could ride through the fair 
hunting-grounds of the skies. A coffin was made and lavishly decorated. 
The body was not unbound from its deer-skin shroud, but was wrapped in a 
bright red blanket and placed in the coffin, mounted on the wheels of an 
artillery caisson. After the coffin came a twelve-pound howitzer, and the 
whole was followed to the cemetery by the entire garrison in full uniform. 
The tempestuous and chilling weather moderated somewhat. The Rev. Mr. 
Wright, who was the post chaplain, suggested an elaborate burial service. 
Shan-tag-a-alisk was consulted. He wanted his daughter buried Indian 
fashion, so that she would go not where the white people went, but where 
the red people went. Every request of Shan-tag-a-lisk was met by Colonel 
Maynadier with a hearty and satisfactory ‘Yes.’ Shan-tag-a-lisk was silent 
for a long time; then he gave to the chaplain, Mr. Wright, the ‘parfleche* 
which contained the little book that General Harney had given to her 
mother many years before. It was a small Episcopal prayer book, such as 
was used in the regular army. The mother could not read it, but considered 
it a talisman. Mr. Wright then deposited it in the coffin. Then Colonel 
Maynadier stepped forward and deposited a pair of white kid gauntlet cavalry 
gloves to keep her hands warm while she was making the journey. The 
soldiers formed a large hollow square, within which the Indians formed a 
large ring around the coffin. Within the Indian ring, and on the four sides 
of the coffin, stood Colonel Maynadier, Major O’Brien, Shan-tag-alisk, 
and the chaplain. The chaplain was at the foot, and read the burial service, 
while, on either side, Colonel Maynadier and Major O’Brien made responses. 
Shan-tag-a-lisk stood at the head, looking into the coffin, the personification 
of blank grief. When the reading service closed Major O’Brien placed in 
the coffin a new, crisp one-dollar bill, so that Ah-ho-appa might buy what 
she wanted on the journey. Then each of the Indian women came up, one 
at a time, and talked to Ah-ho-appa; some of them whispered to her long 
and earnestly, as if they were by her sending some hopeful message to a lost 
child. Each one put some little remembrance in the coffin; one put a little 
looking-glass, another a string of colored beads, another a pine cone with 
some sort of an embroidery of sinew in it. Then the lid was fastened on 
and the women took the coffin and raised it and placed it on the scaffold. 
The Indian men stood mutely and stolidly around looking on, and none of 
them moved a muscle or tendered any help. A fresh buffalo skin was laid 
over the coffin and bound down to the sides of the scaffold with thongs. 
The scaffold was within the military square, as was also the twelve-pound 
howitzer. The sky was leaden and stormy, and it began to sleet and grow 
dark. At the word of command the soldiers faced outward and discharged 
three volleys in rapid succession. They and their visitors then marched 
back to the post. The howitzer squad remained and built & large fire of 
pine wood, and fired the gun every half-hour all night, through the sleet, 
until daybreak. 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


23 


“The daughter of Shan-tag-a-lisk was an individual of a type found in 
all lands, at all times, and among all peoples; she was misplaced. 

“Her story is the story of the persistent melancholy of the human race; 
of kings born in hovels, and dying there; of geniuses born where genius is a 
crime; of heroes born before their age, and dying unsung; of beauty born 
where its gift was fatal; of mercy born among wolves, and fighting for life; 
of statesmen born to find society not yet ripe for their labors to begin, and 
bidding the world adieu from the scaffold. 

“We all of us know what it is to feel that at times we are out of tune 
with the world, but ever and anon we strike a note and come back into 
temporary harmony; but there are those who are never in tune. They are 
not alone the weak; they are the strong and the weak; they are the am¬ 
bitious, and as well also the loving, the tender, the true, and the merciful. 

“The daughter of Shan-tag-a-lisk wanted to find somebody to love 
worth loving. Her soul bled to death. Like an epidendrum, she was feeding 
upon the air. 

“ When wealth and civilization shall have brought to the Rocky Mountains 
the culture and population which in time shall come, the daughter of Shan- 
tag-a-lisk should not be forgetten. It may be said of her, in the words of 
Budha: 

“ ‘Amid the brambles and rubbish thrown over into the road, a lily may 
grow’.” 

These flashlight views of the life Ware led during the years of the war 
and after will convey some faint notion of what it was in those days to be a 
frontier soldier for a nonmilitary country. It was his lot to experience, on 
the one hand, almost hourly contact with disease, death, violence, brutality, 
and utter barbarism, disloyalty, dishonesty and compound villainy. On 
the other hand, he saw Spartan courage, splendid devotion to duty and the 
most exalted patriotism. In these piping times of peace in our country we 
sometimes wonder if there is such a thing as unselfishness as between the 
country and its citizens, but to Ware and those who had his experience it 
became a matter of certainty that there was such a glorious thing^s love of 
country superior to love of self. 

Mr. Ware’s war experience greatly intensified his natural ingenuity. 
The soldier learns to make short cuts, to jump the fences, to blaze new trails, 
to resort to wholly unprecedented means to accomplish an end. This was 
Ware’s characteristic as a lawyer. He was a fine lawyer, a wonderful lawyer, 
but a wholly unconventional lawyer. His methods in any given case were 
more apt to be unprecedented than othg^yise. Lawyers prefer beaten tracks. 
The train of precedent is very alluring—particularly to judges. Ware $as 
very likley in any case to think out a new way. There was danger inthis, 
because courts do not take kindly to novelty of theory and argument. Some¬ 
times Ware’s new ways would not work, but they were never without strik¬ 
ing features which demanded the most respectful consideration. 

Mr. Ware was popular and he was not. Few men in the state were better 
known. Few were better liked. Few were more heartily disliked. The men 
who disliked Ware were those who felt the sting of his criticism directed 
either at them personally, or, as was usually the case, at some favorite idea 
or hobby or institution. No man who thinks with absolute independence 
and expresses his convictions with soldierly emphasis can be popular with 


24 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


everybody. Ware had bitter enemies, some of whom, most of whom, were 
greatly to his credit. But enemies with him were taken as of course and did 
not seriously arrest his attention. He laughed about them and at them 
and forgot them. 

Mr. Ware was what we are in the habit of calling a self-made man. We 
have seen what his schooling was. But yet he was an ardent believer in 
education as we ordinarily understand it. On one point, however, he was 
strikingly at variance with the too common practice of the day. He believed 
that the great object of the schools was, or should be, to train the observa¬ 
tion and the memory. He believed, therefore, in a simple curriculum which 
should be followed thoroughly and accurately instead of an elaborate curri¬ 
culum so voluminous and so scattered that only superficial work could be 
done. He believed a strong man or woman with a powerful memory and a 
disposition to read and listen and observe could go on accumulating a college 
education to the end of life. He was intensely fond of the study of words 
and their uses. His universal language is quite as likely to be accepted as 
the volapuk or any other similar device. 

Of the arts he was an ardent if not a profound student. Pictures and 
statuary were his constant delight, and of music his love was infinite. Of 
the famous pictures and sculptures of the world he always seemed to know 
something strange or curious or strikingly out of line with ordinary knowledge 
of such subjects. In music he wanted the very best, from Beethoven down. 
The music that appealed to him most was undoubtedly the compositions 
revealing and arousing the finer feelings and the deeper emotions rather than 
the compositions of mere technical complexity. 

Ware’s humor was of every known variety—at least every known good 
variety. It bubbled up from the deep wells of his understanding. There 
can be no humor without understanding, for humor is a keen appreciation 
of the unusual, the illogical and the incongruous in any association of ideas! 
In the greater part of what he wrote and said the humorous strain was inter¬ 
woven. One instance: He had in a Topeka bank in 1893 twenty thousand 
dollars. The banks of the Middle West began to break. One after another 
closed its doors. Careful bankers began to surmise as to whom among their 
depositors, for one reason or another, might be expected to reduce their 
balances. The bankers having Mr. Ware’s money decided that his money 
would likely be first to disappear. Next morning, sure enough, the top letter 
on the cashier’s desk was from Ware. It read: “I see that the banks all over 
the country are closing their doors. You have twenty thousand dollars of 
my money. I want you to keep it. I make it a practice to deposit my 
money, but I never deposit my nerve.” 

Every man is religious; there are no exceptions. There are vast differences 
in the degrees of religious feeling, and there are still greater degrees of dif¬ 
ference in the methods of religious expression—or expression of religious 
feeling. The form of expression depends largely on the temperament. It 
is impossible to think of the backward man of peace and the robust man of 
blood and iron holding exactly the same relation to any given religious 
opinion. A Cromwell may profess Christianity, but in shaping his conduct 
he will put his own construction on the teachings of the Master. So Ware 
could not subscribe to hundreds of popular dogmas, and he was skeptical 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


25 


as to most of the theological schemes evolved by clever thinkers. But the 
great foundation truths of all religions were his. Here is one confession of 
his hope and his expectation: 

“The soul doth sometimes seem to be 
In sunshine which it can not see; 

At times the spirit seems to roam 
Beyond the land, above the foam, 

Back to some half-forgotten home. 

Perhaps—this immortality 
May be indeed reality.” 

The time is at hand when there will be no Kansas pioneers of the first 
half century. In a‘ little while all who care to know of our pioneer days 
will have recourse only to the books. In these books the name of Eugene 
Fitch Ware will be found so long as the books survive. In the long bright 
list of early activities his name will command the admiration and the envy 
of those who follow. 

All men covet immortality. They desire to remain. They recoil from 
the idea of eternal banishment from all they have loved and enjoyed—from 
their very selves. They cling to life and the things of life as if they were 
pledges of the life to come. And so men build for futurity—the days after 
death—striving to perpetuate themselves and their friends. They build 
that they may not be forgotten—that they may live and live on in the 
minds and hearts of the millions yet unborn. And this is well, for it is the 
best we can do. The printed page, the stately monument, the record of 
the painter’s brush and the sculptor’s chisel all come to our aid. And I am 
sure that to-night you will all join me in my feeling of great thankfulness 
that our beloved Society has become the owner of a splendid bronze bust 
of the friend to whose life and work we have devoted the evening. 

I have the nonor to present to the Kansas Historical Society, on behalf 
of the family of the late Eugene Fitch Ware, a bronze bust of Mr. Ware 
by the well-known sculptor, Robert P. Bringhurst. 


26 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


ACCEPTANCE ON BEHALF OF THE HISTORICAL 

SOCIETY. 

By William E. Connelley, Secretary. 

M R. GLEED: On behalf of the Kansas State Historical Society, I accept 
this magnificent figure in bronze. It gives me much pleasure to do 
so. It represents him who is of earth no more—who was one of a group of 
Kansans of whom few are left. They wrought mightily here, and a great 
state rose from the American Desert. They built it. They fashioned it. 
As they made it, so it stands to-day—so must it ever stand, with only 
such modifications as future development and changing conditions shall 
show to be wise. 

They are immortal. Monuments will be raised to commemorate their 
deeds. When wealth has accumulated and time for reflection has come— 
when private quarrels and foolish contentions shall sink into insignificance 
before the rising grandeur of imperishable names—then their stories shall 
be blazoned upon granite, marble and bronze, reared, chiseled, sculptured 
on rolling prairies and bold headlands o’erlooking Kansas Nyanzas. 

These illustrious Kansans wrought each into the Kansas temple of state 
his own individuality. The structure standing in the subdued sheen begot¬ 
ten of the Great Plains by translucent skies looms in immeasurable sym¬ 
metry. Critically examined it reveals the sturdy conservatism of Robinson, 
the daring leadership and constructive statesmanship of Lane, the mills of 
the gods grinding slowly but surely, vengeance, wrath, and eternal justice 
through the soul of John Brown. And the principles—stones and timbers 
of the temple—are bolted and bound, finished and burnished by that sapient 
capacity and inspiration of the Wilders and Plumbs, the Ingalls and Wares, 
working down into your days and mine. 

And of all these we come to-day to render some meed of commendation 
and justice to one of these builders—your friend and mine—a distinguished 
coworker here in the field so assiduously cultivated by this Society. You 
have spoken of his splendid personality. Another friend—Mr. Cory—will 
tell us of his literary genius. Let me recount briefly some reminiscences 
springing from hours spent happily and profitably in companionship with 
him. In this I hope to emphasize traits and characteristics which made him 
the charming host, the fascinating guest, the agreeable associate, and the 
true and loyal friend. 

Mr. Ware spent many evenings in my home, and I spent many in his 
home. So far as I was able to observe, he never wasted time in meaningless 
conversation and drivelling tete-a-tete. He had something worth hearing 
to say all the time. Two of his books—and most valuable ones they are— 
resulted from his conversation at my fireside. I refer to the “Lyon Cam¬ 
paign” and “The Indian War of 1864.” And strange enough, he told me 
the stories composing the last-named book long before he mentioned the 
incidents making the first one. Yet he published “The Lyon Campaign” 
first. The first of these stories I heard him tell was that entitled “You will 
never see Omaha,” and which may be found beginning at page 440, “The 
Indian War of 1864.” All the other stories of that book followed as we met 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


27 


during the year. I say “stories.” They were his experiences in a wild and 
stirring Indian campaign in the Platte valley under General Robert B. 
Mitchell. And but for my insistence they would never have been written, 
and this valuable contribution to the history of the Civil War would have 
been lost. On the 18th of March, 1911, he wrote me: 

“My book is all in print and Harris [proofreader for Crane & Co.], who 
has to read it anyhow, whether he wants to or not, says that it is a very in¬ 
teresting book. I hope it is, and if the world enjoys it they will have you to 
thank, for I never should have written the book unless you had cudgeled me 
for about five years doing it.” 

It was his final work. The last line I ever had from him was a card 
dated at Cherokee, June 22, 1911. It said: 

“Dear Connelley: Please go to Crane & Co. and get one of my Indian 
books and have them charge it up to me. I also send my best regards. 

E. F. Ware.” 


In his letter of the 18th of March is this paragraph: 

“When I get business off from my mind, which I will this spring and sum¬ 
mer, then I am going to take up, as I told you, “The Invasion of Arkansas.” 

This “Invasion of Arkansas” was another series of war incidents from 
his long service in the army. They described the invasion of Arkansas from 
the north and the capture of Helena. It was an interesting and stirring 
campaign, and the reports and records tell very little about it. So it is now 
lost to us by his death. I have preserved some of the incidents which he told 
me of it, but nothing like all of them, for I had insisted that he write the 
book until he agreed to do so. It was on this campaign that he received the 
wound in his arm which never healed and which troubled him the remainder 
of his life. 

“The Lyon Campaign” was published in 1907. Every story in it was 
told by my fireside long before it was written. I drew the maps for the book 
and reviewed the manuscript before it went to press. I urged him to elimi¬ 
nate what it contained about John Brown, but there were times when he 
could not be moved. However, the last time he ever visited me he assured 
me that he regretted that he had not taken my advice, saying that I had 
been right and he had been wrong in the matter. He had gone back to his 
first convictions concerning the character of John Brown—those expressed 
in his immortal poem. He was then very anxious that the statue of John 
Brown should be placed in the Hall of Fame at Washington. 

I have preserved the conversation which caused Ware to quit the regular 
army and resign his commission as captain. He was on the staff of General 
Washington L. Elliott, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth. General Elliott 
was ordered to St. Louis for some consultation. Mrs. Elliott and Ware 
went along. From Kansas City they went on the Missouri Pacific railroad. 
The cars were small and dingy. They were lighted by candles in sockets 
having springs to push them up as they burned. There were also common 
lanterns; of these one was hung above the door at each end of the car. Mrs. 
Elliott and Ware sat in a seat opposite the general, who dozed while they 
talked. She told him to quit the army if he intended to marry; that the life 
of an army officer’s wife was most miserable. No home could be established. 
It was almost impossible to endure the jealousies and bickerings of the wives 


28 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


of the officers at forts and stations. No man had any right to drag his wife 
into barrack life. And so on. Such an impression did the truthful portrayal 
by this gray-haired old lady of army life for women make on Ware that he 
soon gave up his commission. For he intended to have a home some day. 
He saw he would never have one if he remained in the army. 

How Ware came to settle in Kansas is a very interesting story. It re¬ 
sulted from his work on the Burlington (Iowa) Hawkeye. Here is what he 
says of the work: 

“I used to be a newspaper man. I was on the Burlington Hawkeye away 
back in ’66-’67. That was my first job after leaving the army. I enlisted 
the day we got news of Fort Sumter, in the First Iowa regiment. I was just 
nineteen then. I belonged to a zouave drill company that was famous 
throughout the West for fancy drilling—all boys. Minute war broke out, 
nothing would do us but we must go. And such pulling and using of influ¬ 
ence! Every one was afraid he’d be left out on that first roll and that the 
war’d be over in sixty days and he wouldn’t get to go. I was delighted when 
I was taken. Well, I served out that stretch, and then I did three years in 
the Fourth Iowa cavalry. And still the war wasn’t over. I went out again 
as a volunteer cavalry officer, and after peace was declared with the South 
we were sent north to fight Sioux Indians. Then we were mustered out and 
I went back to Burlington—twenty-four years old and looking for a job. 

“I contributed an editorial or so to the Hawkeye, which then was edited 
by a Mr. Beardsley. After him came Frank Hatton, and then Bob Burdette, 
you know. But they were after my time. Mr. Beardsley liked my stuff 
and offered me $75 a month to go on the paper regularly, and after considera¬ 
tion I took him up. I liked the work too. Pretty soon I evolved an idea. 
Mr. Beardsley liked to make running comments on the telegrams we got; 
for instance, “How does this strike you?” New York, such a date, and then 
the story. I was given charge of the telegraphic news and wrote my other 
stuff beside. I used to show up at one p. m. and work till four a. m. After 
about seven or eight months I began to feel sick. I didn’t know what I had. 
I went to Doctor Nassau—he’d been surgeon of the Ninth Iowa—and told 
him I wanted access to his medical library. Then I began to read up. I 
found I had a fearful complication—heart trouble, consumption, liver com¬ 
plaint, sciatica, diabetes and incipient paraplegia. I was alarmed. I went 
to the doctor and asked advice. He took note of my symtoms and told me 
I was simply over-worked. He said all there was about it—I must leave the 
paper or collapse. He said, ‘get in the open air.’ I came to Kansas. Been 
here ever since, lawing. But that’s how I started in the newspaper business.” 

Ware had seen much of southeastern Kansas during his service in the 
army. He believed it one of the best sections to be found anywhere for 
raising cattle. An old gentleman named Campbell, of Burlington, had 
noticed the unusual ability and good judgment of Ware. He had almost 
twenty thousand dollars in the bank, and wished to go to southwest Mis¬ 
souri to engage in the cattle business. He proposed that Ware take the 
management of the business, the firm to be composed of his two sons (then 
grown) and Ware. The twenty thousand dollars was to be invested in cattle, 
and each was to be a partner with a one-fourth interest. The boys and 
Ware were to do the work and furnish the salt for the cattle. They were to 
cut the hay for winter feed. 

A wagon and outfit for camping were furnished by Campbell, also a team 
of horses. The baggage was loaded onto the wagon, that of Ware consisting 
of a trunk filled with clothing, etc. Ware rode his own horse, a good one. 
The road lay southwest through Missouri. When they had traveled a day 
or two people began to be inquisitive and meddlesome. Bushwackers—men 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


29 


who had fought the Union from the brush, stealing, murdering citizens— 
these gathered about the evening camp fire of the party from loyal Iowa and 
blustered and threatened. The matter became intensified as they advanced 
further into the state. Bearded Missourians would stand about the camp 
fire and point their guns at the members of the party and say, “0, how easy 
I could kill the Yanks,” but would not fire. Ware at such moments kept his 
heavy revolver cocked with the handle in his hand, sure that he could draw 
and kill his antagonist before he would fire. But the others were not so con¬ 
fident, not having been in the army. After some days there was a rumor 
that grasshoppers had eaten all the grass in southwestern Missouri, and 
there were grasshoppers in Missouri and Kansas in 1867. The day after the 
party heard this intelligence they drove forward as usual. For some time 
not a word was spoken. The elder Campbell had threatened to ttirn back 
several times. Coming this morning to a point where the road forked, one 
going on south and two going to the north, he directed his son who was driv¬ 
ing to turn into the northern road east of the one they had come down, and 
said he had fully made up his mind to return to Iowa—that he was afraid to 
go on. Ware persuaded and protested against such action, but to no purpose. 
When he found the party bent on return he told them to put out his baggage. 
Says he: “I will not turn back. I have started to Kansas and intend to go 
there; and I will get to the front there.” 

They dumped out his trunk and drove back to Iowa. Ware watched 
them out of sight. Then a man drove up with a team hitched to a wagon 
without a bed. Ware requested him to take his trunk to the next house, 
where he was received with none too warm a welcome. He had a considerable 
sum of money with him, but looked about for work—something useful to do. 
Some one had made brick and built them into a kiln ready to burn. Ware 
had a chum in his boyhood days whose father made brick, and many an 
evening had he spent there watching the men poke the fire and cast in the 
cordwood. He believed he could burn a kiln of brick from this experience, 
so applied for the job of burning, which he obtained, to begin “next Monday 
morning.” 

But before “next Monday morning” came he saw one day a train of 
emigrants descend a low hill in that country. Three men were walking in 
front of the teams—some half a mile in advance. As they passed the house 
where Ware was he gave the hailing sign of the Grand Army of the Republic, 
which was immediately answered by one of the three. 

The Grand Army has had two organizations. The purpose of the first was 
to crush the South should she attempt an uprising after the war. It was or¬ 
ganized in the days of uncertainty and anxiety of the early part of Johnson’s 
administration. The ritual was impressive, and members were initiated 
with cocked guns presented at their breasts, and sworn to go to the assistance 
of their country under penalty of death. When this danger of a new south¬ 
ern uprising had passed the Grand Army fell to pieces, but was later organ¬ 
ized with an entirely different purpose—that of preserving the memory of 
the glorious deeds of the comrades who fell, and perpetuating patriotic 
sentiment. 

The ties of brotherhood were naturally stronger in the first and fiercer 
organization. Ware wa asked as to his regiment and service. When he had 
given satisfactory responses he inquired the names of the men and the des-^ 


30 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


tination of the party. One was Captain Warren of Burdge’s regiment of 
sharpshooters—and Ware had known the regiment well. It was soon agreed 
that he should go on with the party. One of the horses was about exhausted, 
and Ware’s was put in to take its place. In this manner the party pro¬ 
ceeded on the journey to the south. 

While the party did not doubt what Ware said in giving an account of 
himself and explaining how he came to be where he was found, still he needed 
some incident to make the party enthusiastically warm up to him. He had 
a sister, a bright girl, always well informed, a great reader, and he had told 
her what towns to direct her letters to him, that he might get them on his 
journey. Coming to one of these towns he found a letter, and in it were 
many clippings from Iowa papers expressing regret at his leaving the state. 
One was from he Des Moines Register, giving him particularly warm praise, 
and condemning the Hawkeye for allowing him to leave the state. He glanced 
over these clippings and handed them to Captain Warren, who read them 
and passed them to his companions. This made him a hero, and the party 
were confirmed in their good opinion of him, and this friendship existed 
until years after, when one by one the party drifted away and dropped out 
of sight. The party stopped in that part of Kansas about Cherokee, where 
they settled and made homes. 

How he homesteaded the land upon which his son now lives is most in¬ 
teresting, but this paper is too long already to permit my telling it here. But 
I will set down how he came into the practice of the law: 

His life in the open in outhern Kansas restored his health, and with his 
health returned his cheerful hopeful, sanguine, aggressive disposition. He 
was intensely practical. He made friends—many friends. And here is 
where he first took up the law. He was recognized by his neighbors as far 
above the ordinary man in ability. His army work (as adju ant) had made 
him ystematic and methodical, and he was a fine clerk. In the petty law¬ 
suits of the neighborhood he often took part at the solicitation of some friend 
who needed a lawyer. He bought a Kansas Statutes (edition of 1868) and 
read it carefully by the window in his cabin. He was soon too much for any 
lawyer in th country. Finally he got a hard case. He sued a man for a 
client for thirty dollars—value of some corn. The defendant said he did 
not owe anything, as the plaintiff had thrashed him in a fight they had had, 
and had injured him to the amount of fifty dollars. Ware thought this offset 
was not just as it should be. He did not think such damages a legal offset. 
But he knew little law and was at a loss as to the proper course. Finally he 
went to Fort Scott and laid his case before a lawyer there. The lawyer 
agreed with him that such damage could not serve as an offset to plaintiff’s 
claim. “Have you any lawbook which £ays so in so many words?” says 
Ware. “I must see the law.” “Yes I have,” said the lawyer, taking down 
“ Walker’s American Law.” “ Here it is,” turning to the proper place. “ How 
much is this book worth,” asked Ware. “Six dollars,” said the lawyer. 
“Here is your money,” said Ware. He won his lawsuit. 

Ware read the book very carefully. He would examine himself daily, 
using the index as a list of questions. He would take the first subject in the 
index and see what he could state of the subject referred to. If he had not 
as clear a conception as he supposed he needed of any subject, he turned 
back and read the article carefully, then went on with his self-examination. 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


31 


In this way he learned all the book contained. Then he borrowed “Kent’s 
Commentaries” and read them carefully. He was all this time “wolloping” 
every lawyer who came into his neighborhood. He finally thought of apply¬ 
ing for admission to the bar at Fort Scott. It was necessary for him to have 
been reading in the office of a lawyer two years or have a diploma from a 
law school. He had, in fact, neither qualification, but he had a fair knowledge 
of law and an immense fund of experience and good, hard common sense. 
The lawyer of whom he had borrowed books arranged for the appointment 
of a committee of examination, which spent a whole afternoon questioning 
him. The report was favorable and he was admitted to the bar. 

But now came on the Greeley campaign. Mr. Greeley was a man whom 
Ware admired. He believed he should be elected. He edited the Fort Scott 
Monitor in Greeley’s interest. He did more. He had made some money 
farming—$1400 one year. By the way, he had moved from his first claim 
where he built his cabin. He sought a fine section of land and built a house 
in the center—of four rooms—a room on each quarter section. He claimed 
one quarter for himself, one for his father, and one each for his two brothers. 
He had some trouble to hold them all, but he finally did it, and owns the 
whole section to-day. But to return to the campaign. Ware never did any¬ 
thing in a half-hearted way; he did anything he went at with his whole soul 
and all his force and energy. He believed Greeley should win—believed, 
too, that he ought to win. He bet his money on Greeley’s success, and lost— 
lost almost all he had. 

He then went into the office of McKeighan & Co., lawyers, at a salary; 
but he was somewhat downcast, and.the future looked gloomy. He had 
some offers to enter newspaper work permanently. He liked the work, and 
was almost persuaded to accept a place on a paper. Still he was not sure he 
ought to give up the law. While in this uncertain frame of mind, Prof. O. C. 
Fowler, the great phrenologist, came to Fort Scott. One day McKeighan 
said: “Ware, did you ever have your head examined by a phrenologist? I 
have just come from Professor Fowler. You ought to go over and have him 
examine your head.” 

Ware did not take much stock in what he said, but McKeighan insisted. 
The fee was five dollars. Ware had about eighty-five dollars. Finally he 
determined to visit the phrenologist, but that he would be very discreet. 
He marched in, did not speak, put five dollars on the table, drew his coat 
dose about him and pointed to his head, without saying a word. Fowler 
understood him, and began the examination by a careful feeling of all the 
bumps on his head and studying the shape of the skull. The first thing he 
said was: “Young man, if you have not already commenced the study and 
practice of law, you should begin at once.” 

That was enough. He opened an office. It was well along in the month 
(February), and before the end of the month he had taken in fifty dollars. 
He advanced steadily, and has made his way to a high place in the profes¬ 
sion in the state. 

Among his first cases was a foreclosure of mortgage for an eastern client. 
About three thousand dollars was turned over to him on the day of the sale. 
This he would be required to retain until the case was finally settled and the 
costs paid. He had never had a bank account. With the three thousand 
dollars in his pocket he started to his office. On the way he passed a bank. 
which was operated by Wiley Britton, who later wrote a splendid book en- 


32 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


titled “The Civil War on the Border,” and who lives now in Kansas City, 
Kan. Ware had known Britton in the army. It occured to him that he had 
better put his money in the bank until he should need to remit it. So he 
went into the bank. He noticed that all the bank force had congregated 
away back by the rear door and were in earnest conversation. But Britton 
and his associates came forward and greeted him warmly. He deposited the 
money and said he should have to send it away in about three weeks. The 
bank began to send him business, and he was well pleased with this new 
connection. He sent the money to his client through the bank when the 
matter was finally closed up. 

In about six months the bank failed. Ware congratulated himself upon 
not being caught, and one day spoke to Britton about his good luck. 

Britton replied to him: 

“Ware, do you remember that we were all back at the rear door when 
you came in to make that deposit of three thousand dollars?” 

“Yes,” replied Ware, “I remember that very well.” 

“Well,” said Britton, “we were back there consulting as to whether we 
should try to remain open the remaining hour untill closing time, then close 
and never open again, or go out and close the door and announce our failure 
at that moment. You came along with your three thousand dollars and 
saved us. We ran six months after that new lease of life.” 

“Well, I’ll be d-d,” said Ware. And he walked off in a cold sweat 

and weak as a cat. 

Here is another incident. I copy it verbatim from my diary: 

“June 11, 1901. I went to the home of E. F. Ware to get the manuscript 
of ‘The Founding of Harman’s Station.’ While there a rain came on and 
Mr. Ware and I sat on the porch and had a pleasant hour. He related an 
incident as follows: 

“In 1893 it was dry; no rain came until late in June, that is, none of 
consequence. One day a heavy rain began falling. I wanted to express my 
excessive satisfaction, and so telegraphed the official state chemist at the 
University, Lawrence, as follows: ‘Strange substance falling from the sky.’ 
This was a joke, or intended as such by me. But the chemist failed to see 
the humorous side of it; perhaps it was not raining at Lawrence. He wired 
me: ‘Will take first train to Topeka.’ By jingo, it was now losing its hum¬ 
orous side to me, too. I rushed down and sent this telegram: ‘Investigation 
reveals the fact that the strange substance is water.’ But in a few minutes 
the telegraph company reported the telegram could not be delivered as the 
chemist had taken the train for Topeka a few minutes before its reception. 
Now I was in a pickle. The chemist was an intimate friend, but slow to see 
a joke. I took refuge in flight. I sent my stenographer to the station to 
meet the chemist and inform him that I had been suddenly called from the 
city on important business, and I was always afraid to inquire the full extent 
of his wrath and indignation. Although formerly intimate friends, we are 
now upon only very formal civilities. We have often met since the strange 
substance fell, but neither of us ever referred to the incident in the presence 
of the other. It is funny to me yet, but I presume it never was funny to the 
chemist.” 

One day as we rode about Washington, Mr. Ware told me about his trip 
to Boston. He went there to attend some gathering of celebrities, but whom 



Eugene Fitch Ware . 


33 


or what they were doing I have forgotten. The exercises terminated in a 
ride in automobiles from Boston to Concord and return. There were nearly 
a hundred cars. Mr. Ware was in the last car to start. 

Though the last to leave, he did not lag behind. His driver made a most 
amazing run. He missed speeding street cars by inches. He headed off 
vans and heavily loaded trucks. He wound and wriggled through the line 
of cars which had gone out first until he headed the procession. Mr. Ware 
and his fellow-riders often held their breath until difficult turns and twists 
were made. But they arrived at Concord safe and sound, and several min¬ 
utes ahead of the procession. 

There are many interesting things to be seen at Concord. Ware found 
these. He lingered at Emerson’s grave a long time. When his car came 
around to the old tavern it was again at the rear. And again did the driver 
begin his hair-raising and thrilling tactics; for the car was soon ahead and 
the others distanced. It crashed up to the hotel curb, almost upsetting a 
cab, but no damage was done. As he left the car Mr. Ware complimented 
the driver. Slipping a dollar tip into his hand, he said to him: 

“Young man, you are certainly a splendid driver. Sometimes I thought 
you were up against catastrophies, but you managed to get out.” 

“Yes,” replied the driver, “I do pretty well for the experience I have had. 

I never saw an automobile until last Thursday.” 

“By George, Connelley,” Mr. Ware said, “we had been riding on a vol¬ 
cano all the way to Concord and back and supposed we had the most expert 
driver in New England. And maybe we did have, but I walked weak in the 
knees every time I thought of that ride the remainder of the summer.” 

My most happy recollections of Mr. Ware are of those hours when we 
could talk without interruption. When we were in the Pension Bureau he 
would send a note to my division every day when he had time to ride after 
the day’s work. These notes were always sent by Jackson, his doorkeeper— 
a colored man and a character. Some of these notes I preserved. The one 
received on July 4, 1902, is as follows: 

“Mr. Connelley: Can you call at 4 p. m.—office? Ware.” 

The government furnished him a carriage and driver. That summer we 
drove almost every day after work. It was during these drives that he told 
me so much of his life, though he had recounted his war experiences before 
this, in Topeka. Our drives usually ended at some famous eating-place, 
where he had dinner. Sometimes it was at Harvey’s, often at the Raleigh 
Hotel, where he lived, and sometimes at Fritz Reuter’s, at the corner of 
Four-and-a-half street and Pennsylvania avenue. At the latter place he 
would order for us what he termed a “Dutch lunch for two,” the principal 
dishes of which were Frankfurters, sauer kraut and steins of beer, all im¬ 
ported, and of the first quality. The cookery and service there were fine. 
After I left Washington his letters to me often had a closing sentence in 
reference to these lunches. 

Sometimes we went down the Potomac by steamer, returning at mid¬ 
night, and these were delightful rides, especially if it were moonlight. He 
was familiar with the local history of everything. Where or when he had 
learned it he hardly knew himself, but he rarely forgot anything. 

Next to these hours with Mr. Ware I delighted to receive his letters. 
They were brilliant, sparkling, full of apt humor and unexpected applications ✓ 


—3 


34 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


that struck the spot. This was so even when he wrote in a serious vein or 
wished to make an important announcement. An example of this is his 
verse to Roosevelt when starting on a vacation, and which ran: 

“I take this piece of plumbago 
To tell you I have the lumbago. 

I shall hie me away 
For a week and a day, 

For I feel like a very bum Dago.” 

On May 6, 1905, he wrote me the following: 

“My dear Connelley: Just got a good, nice letter from Dr. Feathers- 
tonhaugh. He writes me about things in the Bureau and he inquires about 
you. He recalls some very pleasant trips we had, and really I think he was 
one of the best men I met in Washington—he and John Hay. 

“By the way, I have just returned from southern Kansas, where I have 
been on business. I stopped over in Peru. Everything there has gone to 
pieces—dead in the shell—all knocked out. There I saw the first crude 
petroleum that I ever had seen direct from the well. They were bailing out 
a well and had about a barrel of it. I got a stick and paddled around in it. 
When I got out of the cars a man told me about the wonderful number of 
things which are made of it. Among others one man told me that they were 
making saccharin out of it—a substance five hundred times as condensed as 
sugar. All these things are very wonderful. If they are going to make every 
thing out of petroleum it must indicate that petroleum is a solution of every¬ 
thing and is a sort of an essence of everything. I guess that we will have to 
suppose that petroleum oil is the blood of this great big earth that we are 
living on, and that this blood circulates around in veins and contains a solu¬ 
tion of all that is necessary for the support of animal, vegetable and mineral 
life. I say mineral because I have come to the conclusion that crystals have 
got intelligence as well as trees and dogs and horses and men. We skirmish 
around on the surface of mother earth and you people down there are engaged 
like a lot of mosquitoes in going down and trying to get blood. If that is the 
correct theory, John D. Rockefeller is the worst gallinipper in the swarm; 
a vein of anthracite coal is nothing but a lot of dried blood, and the poor 
little earth is nothing but a nomad swimming around in space like motes in a 
sunbeam, and we are the worst lot of parasites in the business. Outside of 
the foregoing philosophy I am entirely rational, and would like to have you 
up here to-day to visit with Web Wilder, who is here from Hiawatha with 
his friend Mr. Aten. Come up here as soon as you can and we will figure 
this whole business out. Yours truly, E. F. Ware.” 

From Denver he wrote me September 14, 1909, a charming'letter, from 
which I take the following: 

“ . . . I’m also begrudging the time I am staying on the earth. 
You and I are just wasting our time staying here. The old earth is only a 
penal colony, a sort of a county jail for the universe. You and I have been 
sentenced to hard labor and have been honestly working it out. We must 
have been pretty bad to have had such long terms imposed. When we get 
out we will change our names and begin over again. Hence I say we are 
wasting our time staying here; but, then, as there is plenty of time left, we 
won’t miss it much, in the long run. As I am nearly 70 and my hair is dead 
white, I have a way when I go into a car, a meeting, or a restaurant, of look¬ 
ing around and seeing if I am not the oldest man present, and I generally 
am—men of my age are few, and most of them are not able to leave home 
or travel around, so I seldom meet “my kind of fellows.” I am quite thank¬ 
ful that I possess power of thought and locomotion, and can enjoy the society 
of my fellow convicts and write them letters, to you especially, although I 
prefer talking to you in preference to writing .” 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


35 


Once he sent me a poem which I set out here. I am sure it was never 
published: 

“My dear Connelley: Napoleon said that the world was ruled by ‘senti¬ 
ment.’ I believe it is so. The following is my view upon that^question: 

“ ‘Sentiment. 

“ ‘Little Benny lost a penny; 

It was all he had. 

Sister Jenny said to Benny; 

“Do not feel so bad.” 

“‘One ain’t many,” then said Benny, 

“But it’s all I got.” 

“Busted Benny,” then said Jenny; 

Benny said, “That’s what.” 

“‘Benny then described the penny— 

Flat and round and hard. 

Sister Jenny found a penny 
Rolling round the yard. 

“ ‘Unto Benny then said Jenny, 

“Is this thing your cent?” 

“Yes,” said Benny, “that’s my penny; 

“That’s the cent-I-ment.” ’ 

Yours very truly, E. F. Ware.” 

Here is a delightful letter I received from him only a few months before 
his death: 

April 10, 1911. 

“My dear Connelley: I was down on the farm when I received your 
letter. As I told you before, I have built a library building down there, with 
a large fireplace. I have a good large law library and a good large private 
library there. I have a lot of law books there that I do not particularly want, 
but they have been my friends and have stayed with me many years, and I 
am using the building as a sort of hospital or morgue for those old books. 
Occasionally a friend has dropped in to see them, and when one comes I 
make a fire in the fireplace and burn a law book. When I got your very 
interesting letter I assumed you to be present, at least in spirit, and made a 
fire for you, invoked your presence and burned a law book. The grave in¬ 
cense rose like myrrh. It was ‘Dassler’s Kansas Digest’ that I offered up 
as an invocation to your memory. 

“Some of these days I shall expect to have you down there, and then I 
will burn ‘Clemens on Corporate Security.’ You remember our old friend 
Clem—a sociable Socialist. Some of these days I will be up to see, you; 
until then good-bye. Yours very sincereIyi Ware.” 

The best tribute produced by his death was written by my old time 
friend, Hubert M. Skinner, of Chicago. I close this paper with it: 

“Ironquill. 

“The hand of death is laid on Ironquill, 

And myriads are sad on either shore, 

To whom, as seasons pass, shall float no more, 

With freshness of the meadow and the hill, 

The music of his measures. Yet we still 
Shall count him as among us, as of yore, 

And echo back his laughter, and encore 
His ringing words of faith and hope and will; 

His ‘Washerwoman’s Song’ shall cheer the heart, 

Of the sad toiler, and his ‘Violet Star’ 

Shall lure the dreamer; while the fruitful plains 
Of old Quivera shall preserve his art. 

And ‘Both Nyanzas’ crown his fame afar, 

And Europe, many voiced, take up his strains.” 


33 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


EUGENE FITCH WARE AS A LITERARY MAN. 

Address by Charles Estabrook Cory, read before the thirty-ninth annual meeting of the 
Kansas State Historical Society, October 20, 1914. 

Mr. President , Ladies and Gentlemen of the Kansas Historical Society: 

I AM asked to deliver an address on Eugene Fitch Ware. I can not speak 
in this presence about Ware as a Soldier, or Ware as a Lawyer, or Ware 
as a Man. I knew him too well for that. The warning example of ‘‘Bos¬ 
well’s Life of Samuel Johnson,” and “Meneval’s Memoirs of Napoleon,” 
fresh in memory, forbid that I should attempt it. No hero worshiper must 
attempt to paint his hero. But I will talk to you a few minutes about him 
as a Literary Man. 



c. E. CORY. 


Considering its youth, Kansas is remarkably rich in literary genius. Think 
of Richard Realf, and Ellen P. Allerton, and John J. Ingalls, and Albert D. 
Richardson, and Albert Bigelow Paine, and Noble Prentis, and Daniel 
Webster Wilder, and Captain Joseph G. Waters, and Esther M. Clark, and 
Richard Hinton, and William Allen White, and Margaret Hill McCarter, 
and E, W. Howe. All in a half century. 

Considering its age, Kansas easily outstrips all other states in the wealth 
of its literary products. The old, settled and sedate East could easily pro- 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


37 


duce Thoreau, and Hawthorne, and Poe, and Longfellow, and Lanier, and 
Bryant, and Prescott, and Saxe, and Lowell, and" Irving, and Emerson. 

But here in Kansas was a raw community, fresh in the making. Every 
one busy in home building. Every one poor. Every one struggling for a 
start. 

Those old states had the advantage of generations of training and leisure 
and scholarship. They had the wealth of the Old World literary influence. 
They had brought with them the influence and the inspiration of Oxford, 
and Cambridge, and Edinburgh, and Dublin, and Heidelberg. Kansas had 
no such advantages. Ware had not. His genius was born of the Kansas 
spirit. It was virile. It was fresh. It was strong. It had the perfume, 
of the prairies upon it. 

There is an aphorism, which has been used so often that it is worn and 
hackneyed—“Poets are born, not made.” That saying is old and trite; 
but no wise saying ever contained more concentrated truth in so few words. 
Real poetic genius may be helped by learning, as it is in some cases. It has 
been injured by learning—but it surely is never created by it. 

Can you imagine the “Cotter’s Saturday Night” being written by a 
college professor? 

It is a matter of record, and not of legend, that when Robert Burns sub¬ 
mitted his “Bruce’s Address to His Army” to the learned men of Edinburgh 
they revised it for him and changed the meter—learnedly revised it. The 
rough young farmer rejected their work, and published it as he wrote it. 
Had he allowed the scholars to eviscerate it, Thomas Carlyle, Burn’s master¬ 
ful and not partial critic, never could have been able to refer to it as “this 
war-ode” that “should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind.” - 

But there is something in the genius of poetry that makes it revolt at the 
meddling of enervating learning. For instance, a man whose mind was 
clogged with a knowledge of dactyls, and trochees, and spondees, and penta¬ 
meters, never could have written the songs of Ophelia in Hamlet—the 
daintiest, sweetest songs that Shakespeare ever wrote. He would have 
made them proper, but he would have left out the real music, the poetry. 

The young struggling farmer student who, at eighteen, wrote “Thana- 
topsis, ” was discovered by the scholars afterward. He then became famous. 
He then became popular and did splendid service for his country as a diplo¬ 
mat. He did many worthy works. He wrote other poems which miRrt live. 
But a century from now all his later, classical, good work will be forgotten. 
The world will remember him only by that immortal poem, written while 
he was not yet handicapped by the conventionalities of verse making. 

When his splendid services as a public servant in his home country and 
in foreign lands shall be forgotten, when his later, much more polished verse 
shall be faded, then, at that long future time, the name of William Cullen 
Bryant will suggest “ Thanatopsis, ” and no more. 

The distinction between a scholar and an educated man is not a broad 
one, but well defined. Ware was not a scholar. Just at the time when boys 
of wealthy parents, as he was, are getting well started in school work, his 
father, a splendid old Puritan, and a very wealthy man for those days, was 
caught in the business crash just preceding the Civil War and reduced to 
comparative indigence. Young Ware’s school life suddenly stopped. His 
five years in the army was an education in itself, but not of the scholarly” 


38 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


kind. He worked on a farm. He hauled coal with an ox team. He learned 
the harness maker’s trade. In his busiest years as a lawyer I have seen him 
leave the office, and a few minutes after have seen him crowd Jim Cuthbert- 
son off his “horse” in the harness shop, just across the areaway, and stitch 
a tug, “to rest up,” as he said it. 

He saw a short service as editor of the Old Fort Scott Monitor. 

His voracious reading and his tireless energy enabled him later on to 
read Heroditus and Caesar in the original; but a demand for the declension 
of a Greek noun or the conjugation of a Latin verb would have stunned him. 
Indeed it is not at all certain but that the same thing might be said about 
his technical knowledge of English grammar. His masterful use of words 
and language was acquired as the boys in Dickens’ picture of Dotheboys Hall 
studied botany: 

“When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge of plants,” 
said Mr. Squeers, “he goes and knows ’em. That’s our system, Nickleby; 
what do you think of it?” 

Like Nicholas Nickleby, Ware found out surely that the system was a 
very useful one, at any rate. 

When he wrote this stanza in his “Washerwoman’s Song,” he was not 
using his imagination. He had actually seen the humble cot and the baby, 
and the “scissors stuck in spools.” They caught his quick, human sym¬ 
pathy: 

“I have seen her rub and scrub, 

On the washboard in the tub. 

While the baby, sopped in suds, 

Rolled and tumbled in the duds; 

Or was paddling in the pools, 

With old scissors stuck in spools; 

She still humming of her friend 
Who would keep her to the end.” 

When he wrote about the “twelve one-gallows men” who made up the 
jury in his “Hie Jones,” or when he said: 

“And the shingle nail was bust, 

Where the juror’s jeans were trussed.” 

He was not depending on his imagination or his reading. He knew those 
“twelve one-gallows men,” every one of them. He had tried lawsuits before 
them. He had eaten with them, and slept in their cabins. He needed only 
fancy and recollection to mention the shingle nail; for he had himself used 
that very excellent substitute for a suspender button many a time. 

When he spoke of “ . . . ‘boots and saddles’ sounding in the mid¬ 

night chill” he had no need for depending on campfire talk or reading, for 
he had heard and rushingly obyed that stirring cavalry call himself. 

The learned D. W. Wilder gave it as his judgment that as a collection of 
apt fancies, daintily handled, this little verse which our poet called “Type” 
has never been equaled by any one, anywhere: 

“All night the sky was draped in darkness thick; 

From rumbling clouds imprisoned lightnings swept; 

Into the printer’s stick, 

With energetic click, 

The ranks of type into battalions crept, 

Which formed brigades while dreaming labor slept; 

And ere dawn’s crimson pennons were unfurled, 

The night-formed columns charged the waking world.” 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


S9 


Observe the quick succession of imagery—the “draped in darkness,” 
the “imprisoned lightnings,” the “energetic click,” the “ranks of type,” 
the “charged the waking world.” Notice the easy skill with which he 
handles them, even as a trained swordsman handles his familiar blade. Ware 
had seen and heard and been a part of all of them; but only the real artist— 
the poet—could have picked them up and set them to music. 

It is not every one—it is not any one—who can imitate Shakespeare, and 
touch every spot in the field of human passions, impulses, thoughts, feelings, 
hopes. No one ever has, and no one ever can, cover the whole ground of 
human thoughts, hopes, wishes, imagination and fancy as he did. All 
verse writers, except Shakespeare, the master, had their own personal 
fields. Every other one has his one or two strong points. 

In spite of the attention that has been paid to Ware’s pathos, as in “ The 
Washerwoman’s Song;” and his fancy, as in the “Violet Star,” and “Princess 
Karmyl;” and his jollity, as in “The Admission of Hie Jones to the Paint 
Creek Bar”; and his philosophy, as in his “Fables”; he was more of an 
artist when he touched things connected with soldiers and war than any¬ 
where else. 

Different artists, whether with brush o with words, will handle the same 
subject in a different way. 

For instance, with Milton, in war and soldier life, there were “horrid 
battalions” and “serried ranks”; with Byron it was “battle’s magnificently 
stern array.” That is, these writers saw and pictured the coarser, rougher, 
crueler side of soldier life. Other artists have pictured the other side—the 
gay, flaunting “Soldiers Three” or “Three Musketeers” side of it. With 
Macaulay, for instance, war was a sort of picnic jaunt. Here is a good 
example: 

“Press where you see my white plume shine amidst the ranks of war, 

And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.” 

But Ware caught the plain, human side of it. 

Now, Ware was a soldier as well as a poet. He had to be coaxed, almost 
forced, to talk about his army experience, although his record as a soldier 
would be something for any man or any man’s family to be boastful about. 
Under the law he was entitled to a pension from the day he left the army, 
but he never applied for it until he could sign his own certificate as United 
States Commissioner of Pensions—and then he assigned it to a struggling girl 
student, who needed it more than he did. 

With a man of his men al make-up, the odd, grotesque and unusual thing 
could not escape his notice. Did you ever observe that when he touches 
anything in his writings connected with the army or with war there is an 
elem nt of deep feeling, mixed with a galloping recklessness and forceful 
abandon in his way of handling it? His use of descriptive epithets drawn 
from military sources is well-nigh perfect. He handled them easily and 
aptly as one familiar with them. 

For instance, what could be finer than his apostrophe to his beloved 
“Sunset Marmaton,” with the military fancy well used? 


40 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


“0 Marmaton! 0 Marmaton! 

Be patient, for the day will come 
And bring the bugle and the drum. 

Thy fame shall like thy ripples run; 

Thou shalt be storied yet. 

Within this great 
And central state, 

The destiny of some proud day 
Upon thy banks is set. 

“Artillery will sweep away 
The orchard and the prairie home, 

And while the wheat stacks redly burn, 

Armies of infantry will charge 
The lines of works along thy marge, 

While cavalry brigades will churn 
Thy frightened waters into foam.” 

Some years ago there was sitting by my fireside an old army captain 
who had taken many a furious ride with the smell of burning saltpeter in his 
nose. He had earned his straps in service in eastern Virginia in the early 
sixties. He knew something about war. Some way, in our talk, Ware’s 
“Organ Grinder” was mentioned. I read it aloud. At the concluding 
passage the Old man sprang up and said “My God, Cory! There is one 
sound that nobody has ever had sense enough to speak about before— 
the rattle of the canteen. It is like the sound of the rattlesnake. When you 
hear it once you never can forget it. Nobody else ever mentioned that rattle 
of the canteen in a battle charge before.” 

In line with the captain’s comment, notice the vigor and the vividness and 
force of this rapid-fire passage in the “Organ Grinder”: 

“Some sneer thy ragged music, because to them there comes 
No bawling of the bugles, no raving of the drums. 

They hear no ‘boots and saddles’ sounding in the midnight chill; 

They hear no angry cannon thunder up the rocky hill; 

They hear no canteens rattle; they see no muskets shine, 

As ranks sweep by in double quick to brace the skirmish line.” 

What can you imagine, in all your reading, daintier and at the same 
time stronger than his description of the conquest of the wild prairie by the 
sturdy Kansas pioneer farmer, in his “Quivera”? Notice the imagery bor¬ 
rowed from his soldier experience: 

“Sturdy are the Saxon faces, 

As they move along the line; 

Bright the rolling cutters shine, 

Charging up the state’s incline, 

As an army storms a glacis.” 

Who ever read anything more inspiring, concerning patriotism or war, 
than these lines in his “ Neutralia”? 

“There is something in a flag, and a little burnished eagle, 

That is more than emblematic—it is glorious, it’s regal, 

You may never live to feel it, you may never be in danger, 

You may never visit foreign lands and play the role of stranger; 

You may never in the army check the march of an invader, 

You may never on the ocean cheer the swarthy cannonader; 

But if these should happen to you, then, when age is on you pressing, 
And your great big, booby boy comes to ask your final blessing, 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


41 


You will tell him: Son of mine, be your station proud or frugal, 

When your country calls her children, and you hear the blare of bugle, 
Don’t you stop to think of Kansas, or the quota of your county, 

Don’t you go to asking questions, don’t you stop for pay or bounty, 
But you volunteer at once; and you go where orders take you, 

And obey them to the letter if they make you or they break you; 

Hunt that flag, and then stay with it, be you wealthy or plebian; 

Let the women sing the dirges, scrape the lint, and chant the paean. 


If that flag goes down to ruin, time will then, without a warning, 

Turn the dial back to midnight, and the world must wail till morning.” 

This language may be faulty so far as mere rhetoric is concerned; but 
what scholar could amend it, and improve it? 

A well-near universal conception of the ways of thought and the ways 
of working of a poet is an erroneous one. The common conception is that 
a literary person, or a poet—they are really the same—is a dreamer—a man 
or woman with “The eye in fine frenzy rolling,” absent-mindedness, pur¬ 
poseless fancies, odd conceits, long hair. 

The opposite is the fact. Any one who writes or says things worth saying 
or writing must be strong. He must be vigorous. He must have ideas all 
his own. He must have the force to announce them without caring whether 
they meet with favor or not. All mankind despises a weakling. 

Leave our reading of the past out of the estimate, though it teaches the 
same thing. Forget the people who have lived whose work we like to re¬ 
member. Every one of them spoke or wrote or sang in disregard of the 
popular favor. Those whose records live and are fit to live, every one of 
them was strong. 

Forgetting them, think of the men and women here in Kansas who have 
said and done things worth remembering—those close enough to us so that 
we can speak with knowledge. You can not find one of them who was not or 
is not now a worker—what we call a hustler. The group of bright people 
who are now contributing to the honor of Kansas in a literary way are, every 
one of them, busy, working people. 

To be specific, but mentioning only those who are gone—Hinton, Phillips, 
Realf, Prentis, Ingalls Allerton, Wilder—where can you find a little list 
of people who have added more luster to a young state in so short a time? 
Where can you find a list of harder, businesslike workers? 

To do anything in literature a man must have iron in the blood. Ware was 
in that class. He was first of all a lawyer. He was devoted to his profession 
and chivalrously proud of it. Physically strong, he was able to work ten or 
fifteen hours every day. In the days of his middle life he put in several hours 
each day, morning and evening, at home in his “den” as he called it, where 
he had a little well-selected reference library—always appearing fresh and 
new at the office for a full day’s work. His verse making or his other literary 
work never interfered with his duty to his law office. That was his business. 
When he did anything else it was his play, just as most lawyers go fishing 
or go to the ball game. 

I beg you not to think me too complaisant about myself when I say that 
for many years I was closer to Ware’s inner self than any one else now 
living, excepting only his wife. He gave me his inside confidence to such 
an extent that the memory is now very precious to me. Yet in all our talk 
I never heard him quote a single line of poetry, save once. One afternoon 
I came back to the office to report after getting beautifully flailed in a law- 



42 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


suit. I was glum, of course. After my down-hearted recital he repeated,, 
slowly, from Longfellow: 

“Into each life, some rain must fall; 

Some days must be dark and dreary.” 

That was his only comment, and the only time I ever heard him quote 
poetry. 

In the old days of the bloody-shirt waving following the Civil War,. 
Daniel W. Voo.hees of Indiana, a really brilliant man, was a Democratic 
leader in the United States senate. John J. Ingalls of Kansas was making a 
speech. Voorhees persistently interrupted him. Ingalls was very properly 
known as the “Vitriolic Statesman.” He viciously excoriated Voorhees in 
a speech—a kind of running colloquy, which is a classic. The next morning 
a report of it appeared in the dispatches. About nine o’clock that morning 
Ware called me to his room in the office and laid out a scrap of paper, and 
laid a silver dollar on it and told me to take it to the Western Union office 
and send it. Noticing that the message had neither signature nor date line 
I asked him if he didn’t want to sign it. He only said, “No; he’ll know where 
it comes from. If he don’t, I don’t care.” This is what was written on the 
ragged scrap of paper: 

“John J. Ingalls, Washington, D. C.: 

“Cyclone dense, 

Lurid air, 

Wabash hair, 

Hide on fence.” 


Within the week that playful quip was reproduced in hundreds of papers. 

On May day morning in 1898 Captain George Dewey sailed into Manila 
bay in obedience to President William McKinley’s laconic telegram, “Pro¬ 
ceed to Manila and destroy or capture the Spanish fleet.” Dewey did it. 
That evening the newspaper disptaches with scare headlines, twenty times 
as big as themselves, told of the destruction of he fleet. The next morning 
I vividly recall that about three hundred men were at Ottawa, Kan., trying 
to nominate a congressman for the second district. Pleased excitement ran 
high. This man, Captain Dewey, whom nearly everybody had to inquire 
about, as a mere breakfast spell had practically won the little scrap we 
dignify by calling it the Spanish-American War, before the world, or even the 
Spaniards themselves, knew there was a war. Captain Tim Stover, of 
Iola, as a happy and facetious thought, bought a few feet of Manila rope, 
cut it into six-inch bits, unstranded it and tied it into lapel buttonholes as the 
decoration of “The Loyal Order of Manila,” which order was founded then 
and there. Within an hour half the men and women in Ottawa were bearing 
the decoration. You may recall or imagine the excitement there and all 
over America caused by Dewey’s work. 

When the morning Topeka Daily Capital came in it carried this bit of 
ve se: 


“O Dewey was the morning 
Upon the first of May, 

And Dewey was the Admiral 
Down in Manila bay; 

And Dewey were the Regent’s eyes, 
‘Them’ orbs of royal blue. 

And Dewey we feel discouraged? 

I Dew not think we Dew.” 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


43 


In a few minutes everybody was repeating it. Within a week it had been 
published in every corner of the United States, and foreign papers copied it. 
It is quite safe to say that within ten days it had been printed ten million 
times. 

Of course it was doggerel, but it was good doggerel. It hit the point, and 
it well illustrates Ware’s snap-shot way of writing, his happy ability to 
focus in a few lines of verse more sentiment, more patriotism than could be 
expressed in a page of prose. That was his art. 

Of course every lawyer has read Ware’s versified report of the case of 
Lewis vs. The State, which was honored by being printed in the nineteenth 
volume of the reports of our supreme court. Hundreds of verisified reports 
of lawsuits have been written, but good lawyers will tell you that this is the 
most perfect one ever written. Others merely hint at what the court decided, 
but in Lewis vs. State, Ware’s report is as perfect and exact as that of the 
official reporter. That is a strong statement, for the official reporter was 
one of the best lawyers in Kansas, Hon. W. C. Webb. The syllabus of this 
strange case states the decision thus: 

“Law — Paw; Guilt — Wilt. When upon thy frame the law—places its 
majestic paw—though in innocence, or guilt—thou art then required to wilt.” 

The whole report is worth the reading. 

Here are two stories for which I am indebted to Mr. Theodore E. Griffith, 
of Kansas City, Mo., an intimate and long time friend of Ware: 

Thomas E. Dewey, of Abilene, was the editor and publisher of the short¬ 
lived but brilliant magazine, The Agora. He had published a regret that 
Kansas poets had confined themselves to long, elaborate types of verse 
instead of producing triolets or sonnets. 

Ware had written as a postscript to a business letter to a friend at Topeka: 
“I see Dewey grieves because Kansas poets have produced no triolets or 
sonnets. This is sad.” The friend at Topeka (Mr. Charles S. Gleed) tore 
off the postscript and sent it to Dewey. Dewey wrote Ware urging that he 
send him a triolet or a sonnet for the forthcoming edition of the magazine. 

While in the office one afternoon in Fort Scott, Ware was opening his 
mail, and found a letter from Dewey with some clippings. 

“Mr. Ware said,” relates Mr. Griffith, “ ‘I wrote Dewey that I didn’t 
know a triolet from a violet, or a sonnet from a four-flush, but that if he’d 
send me some I’d make him one, and this is his response, and he’s evidently 
called my bluff and expects me to make good. ’ He turned over the envelope 
in which the letter and clippings had been received and wrote eight lines in 
probably half as many minutes, and handed it to me. The lines had the 
simple caption, ‘A Triolet,’ and were as follows: 

“Each second a sucker is born, 

In the world outside of Kansas; 

We’ve got to acknowledge the corn, 

Each second a sucker is born; 

But we laugh the fact to scorn, 

And we don’t care where it lands us— 

Each second a sucker is born, 

But he is not born in Kansas.” 

The lines appeared in The Agora, and were copied extensively. They 
briskly went the rounds of the press, as did all his other Kansas things. 


44 Ka?isas State Historical Society. 


The other story from Mr. Griffith goes to the same point—Ware’s off¬ 
hand writing. 

The two were at dinner. “During the dinner hour,” says Griffith, “the 
conversation drifted to the subject of the religious beliefs of men, and in his 
rapid-fire delivery he analyzed the dominant idea of the various faiths of 
religious beliefs from the beginning of written record, enlarging especially 
upon the quality of faith, and from faith to what he regarded as superstition 
enlarging upon the theme with a wealth of detail and originality of ideas, 
in which sincerity was blended with a degree of respect for every religious 
belief which helped to make the world better, amounting almost to a rever¬ 
ence. 

“After dinner he turned to me and remarked: ‘We didn’t have much 
trouble in grinding out a triolet for Dewey; let’s write a sonnet for Gleed.” 
I suggested his dinner-table theme, ‘Superstition.’ 

“He pulled a tablet of paper toward him and wrote. The time consumed 
in the writing appeared less than would be required by the average penman 
to produce an equal amount of ordinary composition. The lines he had 
written were: 

“Amid the verdure, on the prairies wide, 

'There stretches o’er the undulating floor, 

As on the edges of an ocean-shore, 

From east to west, half buried, side by side, 

A chain of boulders, which the icy tide 
Of glacial epochs centuries before 
From arctic hills superfluously bore, 

And left in Southern summers to abide. 

“So on the landscape of our times is seen 

The rough debris of error’s old moraines. 

The superstition of a thousand creeds, 

Half buried, peer above the waving green; 

But kindly time will cover their remains 
Beneath the sod of noble thoughts and deeds.” 

The sonnet was mailed to Mr. Gleed, who forwarded it without signature 
to the Cosmopolitan , who acknowledged it by a draft to Gleed’s order, which 
he endorsed and forwarded to Ware. 

Ware sent it back to Gleed with the suggestion that the man who could 
get money out of that sort of stuff had more genius than the man who wrote 
it. Gleed sent it back. That check, uncashed, is now pasted in the Ware 
scrap book, in the keeping of the family. 

The sonnet has been translated into half a dozen languages, and naturally, 
is more honored elsewhere than along the banks of the Marmaton. 

One of the remarkable features of Ware’s character is shown in the fact 
that he never commercialized his genius. It was not because he was im¬ 
provident, for he was a careful business man and a money-maker. In his 
work as a lawyer he insisted on ample retainers and full compensation— 
and got them. He was not careless of money matters; but he had the same 
lofty contempt for any one who prostituted his literary genius for money 
that Lord Byron had. It is a noticeable fact that he never received one cent 
for any of his verses. Even the different editions of his poems which were 
authorized by him were published without a cent of profit to him. For at 
least thirty years of his life he would have been welcomed a contributor by 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


45 


the highest class of magazines, at good prices. Other and smaller men have 
hurried to take advantage of much narrower openings; but he did not. 

No book or print of any kind touching his verses ever bore his name, with 
his consent. He always modestly contented himself with his nom de plume 
“Ironquill.” Nothing he ever wrote was copyrighted in his own name; 
always in the name of the publisher. 

On the later editions of his work in book form he did receive royalties, 
but they were religiously kept apart in a separate account and used to send 
copies of his books to his personal friends who would appreciate them. This 
rather odd account is preserved, and may be seen now. 

This peculiarity of his, as I have just said, was not because of his contempt 
for the grossness of money consideration. His law briefs and opinions (and 
they were good literature, too) were all well paid for; but he chose to regard 
his verse-making as his diversion—his play-spell work. He regarded it as 
cheap and petty to ask or take money for it. There was no suspicion of the 
penny-a-liner in his make-up. 

Until this time I realize that I have discussed Ware mostly as a wit 
rather than as a poet. On the matter of his real poetry, as distinguished 
from his mere verse-making, tastes must differ. His verse most often referred 
to as his masterpiece, “The Washer-woman’s Song,” is strong and good. 
It is strong and good because it so very human. No one but a manly man 
could have written it; no one without the delicate feeling of a poet would 
appreciate the spirit of the theme: 

“In a very humble cot 
In a rather quiet spot, 

In the suds and in the soap, 

Worked a woman full of hope; 

Working, singing, all alone, 

In a sort of undertone: 

‘ With a Savior for a friend, 

He will keep me to the end.’ 

“Sometimes happening along, 

I have heard the semi-song, 

And I often used to smile, 

More in sympathy than guile; 

But I never said a word 
In regard to what I heard, 

As she sang about her friend 
Who would keep her to the end. 

“Not in sorrow nor in glee 
Working all day long was she, 

As her children, three or four, 

Played around her on the floor; 

But in monotones the song 
She was humming all day long: 

‘ With the Savior for a friend, 

He will keep me to the end.’ 

“It’s a song I do not sing, 

For I scarce believe a thing 

Of the stories that are told 
Of the miracles of old; 

But I know that her belief 
Is the anodyne of grief, 

And will always be a friend 
That will keep her to the end. 


46 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


“Just a trifle lonesome she, 

Just as poor as poor could be; 

But her spirits always rose, 

Like the bubbles in the clothes, 

And though widowed and alone, 

Cheered her with the monotone, 

Of a Savior and a friend 
Who would keep her to the end. 

“I have seen her rub and scrub, 

On the washboard in the tub. 

While the baby, sopped in suds, 

Rolled and tumbled in the duds; 

Or was paddling in the pools, 

With old scissors stuck in spools; 

She still humming of her friend 
Who would keep her to the end. 

“Human hopes and human creeds 
Have their root in human needs: 

And I would not wish to strip 
From that washerwoman’s lip 
Any song that she can sing, 

Any hope that songs can bring; 

For the woman has a friend 
Who will keep her to the end.” 

Flying in the face of general opinion, I think “The Washerwoman’s 
Song” is not his best. He was criticized in a widely printed letter by a 
really good friend of his, for writing it. The ground of criticism was that 
it was irreligious, though why that criticism it would be hard to tell, for 
“The Washerwoman’s Song” is essentially reverential. In answer to the 
criticism he wrote “Kriterion, ” which is, in my opinion, his best work. 
The musical rythm—the music of it—the clear conciseness of thought, the 
dignified movement, mark it as his best piece of finished poetry: 

“I see the spire, 

I see the throng, 

I hear the choir, 

I hear the song; 

I listen to the anthem, while 
It pours its volume down the aisle; 

I listen to the splendid rhyme 

That, with a melody sublime, 

Tells of some far-off, fadeless clime— 

Of man and his finality, 

Of hope, and immortality. 

“Oh, theme of themes! 

Are men mistaught? 

Are hopes like dreams, 

To come to naught? 

Is all the beautiful and good 
Delusive and misunderstood? 

And has the soul no forward reach? 

And do indeed the facts impeach 
The theories the teachers teach? 

And is this immortality 
Delusion, or reality? 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


47 


“What hope reveals 
Mind tries to clasp, 

But soon it reels 
With broken grasp. 

No chain yet forged on anvil’s brink 
Was stronger than its weakest link; 

And are there not along this chain 
Imperfect links that snap in twain 
When caught in logic’s tensile strain? 

And is not immortality 
The child of ideality? 

“And yet—at times— 

We get advice 
That seems like chimes 
From paradise; 

The soul doth sometimes seem to be 
In sunshine which it can not see; 

At times the spirit seems to roam 
Beyond the land, above the foam, 

Back to some half-forgotten home. 

Perhaps—this immortality 
May be indeed reality.” 

As a piece of pure poetic fancy, his “Violet Star” has never been excelled, 
mere dreamer could have written it: 

“ ‘I have always lived, and I always must,’ 

The sergeant said, when the fever came; 

From his burning brow we washed the dust, 

And we held his hand, and we spoke his name. 

“ ‘Millions of ages have come and gone,’ 

The sergeant said as we held his hand;— 

‘ They have passed like the mist of the morning dawn 
Since I left my home in that far-off land.’ 

“ ‘We bade him hush, but he gave no heed— 

‘ Millions of orbits I crossed from far— 

Drifted as drifts the cottonwood seed; 

I came,’ said he, ‘from the Violet Star. 

“ ‘Drifting in cycles from place to place— 

I’m tired,’ said he, ‘and I’m going home 
To the Violet Star, in the realms of space, 

Where I loved to live, and I will not roam. 

“ ‘For I’ve always lived, and I always must, 

And the soul in roaming may roam too far; 

I have reached the verge that I dare not trust, 

And I’m going back to the Violet Star.’ 

“The sergeant hushed, and we fanned his cheek; 

There came no word from that soul so tired; 

And the bugle rang from the distant peak, 

As the morning dawned and the pickets fired. 

“The sergeant was buried as soldiers are; 

And we thought all day, as we marched through the dust; 
His spirit has gone to the Violet Star— 

He always has lived, and he always must.” 


48 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


The spirit of his verse is elemental. He stayed on earth. He took no 
flights. He was not afraid to write as he thought. He thought as ordinary 
everyday men and women think. His charm lies in the fact that he put into 
his verse the very human thoughts and suggestions that come to ordinary 
people—the very same intangible, undescribable quality that makes Long¬ 
fellow and Tennyyson to be appreciated by us common folks. He was like 
the people described by Burns in his letter to William Simpson, who 

“Spak their thoughts in plain braid lallans, 

Like you and me.” 

In his “American Notes,” Rudyard Kipling tells of being interviewed 
by a newspaper reporter in San Francisco, after a long residence in India— 
his first day in America. Kipling said to the reporter, “This is hallowed 
ground, because of Bret Harte.” The reporter answered with a yawn: 
“Well, Bret Harte claims California, but California don’t claim him. Have 
you seen our cracker factory and the new offices of the Examiner?” And 
Kipling soliloquizes: “He could not understand that to the outside world 
the city was worth a great deal less than the man.” 

The time is not now, but it will come, when in this city, and in Fort 
Scott, the people showing their visiting friends about town will point out 
a house and proudly say, “Ironquill lived there.” At that day they will 
drive their visiting friends at Fort Scott out to the National Cemetery and 
point to a great, rough, unchiseled granite boulder, and say, “There is the 
grave of Eugene Ware.” 

Shrines in a new state are slow in coming. They are coming; and Ware’s 
house and tomb will head the list. 

I can not close more properly than by repeating to you his “Adieu,” 
at the end of his first volume. It contains a tender reminder of his love for 
his Kansas home: 

“Oft the resonance of rhymes 
Future hearts and distant times 
May impress; 

Shall humanity to me, 

Like my Kansas prairies, be 
Echoless?” 


Eugene Fitch Ware . 


49 


EUGENE WARE. 

Read before the Saturday Night Club, Topeka, March 9, 1912, by Judge J. S. West . 1 

W HAT may be said here arises out of personal recollection and not from 
consultation of books or poems, and is intended merely as an at¬ 
tempt to give the impression left on my mind by Mr. Ware. 

About the summer of 1871 a number of us were one day at Jimmy Jones’ 
store on Cow creek, in Crawford county. Jimmy was a character. He had 
been a forty-niner and had seen Lola Montez dance before excited crowds 
of miners who threw valuable specimens on the stage in token of their ap¬ 
preciation of her peculiar interpretation of the terpsichorean art. He ate 

and slept in the little back room of the store 
and in the front room kept the usual small 
line of groceries, including “Red Jacket Bit¬ 
ters.” He was everybody’s friend, and to him 
from up and down the creek and over the 
prairies came the young fellows to discuss the 
gossip of the day and tell Jimmy how it all 
happened. Whether or not he died I do not 
know. I think he just evaporated as quietly 
and sadly as he lived and joked. The store 
was on the road leading south into the new 
country, and Jimmy knew everybody who 
had been in the region any length of time. 
On the day in question I noticed a man 
camped with a wagon on the prairie a few 
rods from the store. He was tall and slender 
and wore a soft felt hat, woolen shirt, trousers 
in boots, and when I asked who that man 
was, Jimmy said, “That’s Captain Ware.” Pretty soon Captain Ware came 
in to chat with his friend, and he used words of such syllabic proportions 
that to my boyish mind he seemed a man of wonderful erudition. He had 
the same peculiar voice, graceful swing and manner so familiar in later 
years. Jimmy had a stack of knives and forks piled up on the shelf, and as 
Captain Ware was a well known and welcome guest, he went behind the 
counter and leaned on the shelf to talk. Some way in moving he knocked 
the stack of cutlery to the floor with a crash that was enough to startle 
the sphinx. With his inimitable grace and peculiar humor he simply said 
in a half-solemn tone, “James, those knives fell.” 

On July 4th, 1876, at the centennial celebration in Farnsworth’s Grove 
at Fort Scott, I next remember seeing Mr. Ware when he read his famous 
corn poem. He was still slender, and with his piratical moustache and black 



N OXE i_Judson S. West, associate member of the supreme court of Kansas, was born in 

Allegan county, Michigan, June 28, 1855. He was educated in the common schools of his native 
state and the Kansas University. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. He practiced in 
Bourbon county Kansas, and was judge of the sixth judicial district for five years. He was assistant 
attorney-general nearly six years and was assistant United States attorney for Kansas for more 
than five years. He was elected associate justice of the supreme court in 1910. Judge West is. 
a Republican in politics and is a member of the Baptist Church. He is a man of fine legal attain— 
ments and is popular in Kansas. 

—4 







50 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


Prince Albert suit he presented a picture which has never faded. The poem 
was published in the Fort Scott Monitor, and I committed a good portion of 
it to memory. It was entirely Waresque. No one else could have written 
it, and no other man could have read it in that queer voice running from 
falsetto to gutteral bass. I have not read the poem for perhaps thirty years, 
but I recall certain lines which I used to declaim to the prairie chickens and 
autumn breezes in my lonely rides across the prairies. It began: 

“ Our president and governor have said, 

In proclamations which you all have read, 

That we the record of a hundred years, 

Its hopes, its histories, its pioneers, 

Should hear in public; wishing to obey, 

We meet together on the present day/’ 

Then to show that the poem must be taken straight he said: 

“Nate Price of Troy, at Leavenworth last June, 

Told of a backwoods Arkansaw saloon: 

Two gay ‘commercial tourists,’ somewhat dry, 

Stopped in for drinks as they were passing by. 

Says one: ‘Some lemon in my tumbler squeeze.’ 

The other says: ‘Some sugar, if you please.’ 

Each got a pistol pointed at his head— 

‘You’ll take her straight,’ the bar-keep gravely said.” 

Later on came this sentence: 

“We all believe in Kansas; she’s our state, 

With all the elements to make her great— 

Young men, high hopes, proud dreams—’tis ours to see 
The state attain to what a state should be.” 

The close was in these hopeful words: 

“ And when a hundred years have drifted by, 

And comes the next Centennial July; 

When other orators, in other verse, 

Far better days in better ways rehearse; 

When other crowds, composed of other men, 

Shall re-enact the present scene again; 

May they be able then to say that she 

Is all that we have wished the state to be. ” 

In March, 1880, I entered the law office of Hill & Sallee, at Fort Scott, 
as a student, and soon met Mr. Ware, who had a flourishing office and busi¬ 
ness a little farther up the street. He and Mr. Sallee were firm friends, and 
as my preceptors were both Democrats Mr. Ware was surprised to find me 
at a Republican meeting at Centerville, where he and Elder Campbell were 
to speak and let the party determine which one should succeed Senator 
Griffin, who had just passed away. Mr. Ware was chosen, and early in the 
session of 1881 he wrote me to come up and be clerk to his committee on 
corporations. I replied in his own well-known phrase that I would come if 
I could “raise the fare;” whereupon he sent me a check and I came up. My 
duties were not onerous, and I saw much of the senate and its workings, and 
remember well how he and Noble Prentis, who was a free lance for the Atch¬ 
ison Champion, would fall on each others’ necks when they met. He did not 
believe in prohibition, but he voted for the statute because he had promised 
his constituents to do so. One day W. A. Cormany, of Fort Scott, called on 
him at his room, and, being as cheerful and full of life as ever, Mr. Ware 


Eugene Fitch Ware . 


51 


said: “Corm, if you’ll come up and stay with me I’ll give you two dollars 
a day. Corm, if you’ll come I’ll give you two and a half a day!” 

He and his brother Charlie, Ware & Ware, had an increasing law business 
and were incessant and merciless workers. In fact, Charlie, strong and stal¬ 
wart as he was, literally worked himself to death. If Eugene happened to 
get hold of a new law book he was likely to sit up three-fourths of the night 
and read it through. Once he had a big case involving the guarantee of a 
note, and had shipped down from the state library a wagonload of books 
and read from them a couple of days to the court. One day a client de¬ 
ceived him, and he had painted in big black letters and hung up in his office 
this legend: “The Lord hates a liar”—a sentence somewhat akin to his 
paraphrased expression that the King of Shadows “loves a mining shark.” 
His recreation was poetry. No one could tell where or how it would break 
out, but probably when he was tired or out of sorts. He seemed to hate the 
idea of being known for his poetry; but his “Rhymes of Ironquill,” his 
“Fables,” his “Admission of Hie Jones,” “The Washerwoman’s Song,” and 
the like, kept coming and his fame kept increasing. No one but Eugene 
Ware could have thought of: “Once a Kansas Zephyr strayed where a brass¬ 
eyed bird pup played,” or of a cyclone that “calmly journeyed thence, with 
a barn and string of fence.” When Ingalls performed his heroic surgery 
upon the cuticle of Senator Voorhees there was only one man in the United 
States who could have conceived and sent this message: 

“ Cyclone dense, 

Lurid air, 

Wabash hair, 

Hide on fence. ” 

When Dewey blew up the Spanish fleet it was he who exclaimed: 

“O Dewey was the morning 
Upon the first of May, 

And Dewey was the Admiral 
Down in Manila bay; 

And Dewey were the Regent’s eyes, 

‘Them’ orbs of royal blue: 

And Dewey feel discouraged? 

I Dew not think we Dew. ” 

One evening I was in the Monitor office, and there sat Mr. Ware, correct¬ 
ing with the utmost precision the proof of that sonorous euphony about the 
Marmaton river where “The murmuring Marmaton murms.” “Still mur¬ 
mur on, O Marmaton.” Long years before he had made famous one of its 
tributaries, the “Yellow Paint”: 

“From the shores of Yellow Paint, 

Where the billows loudly roar, 

And the women loudly snore, 

Whether they’re asleep or aint.” 

It is no treason to my home county to say that the Marmaton is as muddy 
and vile and uninteresting a stream as ever wound toward the sea, and the 
Yellow Paint is as beautiful as yellow mud would naturally be, but these 
two poems have cast a glamour over the two streams that time or fact or 
prose or reality can never dispel. 




52 


Kansas State Historical Society. 


Recently in Colorado Springs a minister recited as part of his sermon 
almost the whole of “The Washerwoman’s Song,” and it was as apt and 
effective as any quotation could have possibly been. I lived for some time 
within two blocks of Mr. Ware, and doubtless equally near the site of this 
famous woman, but I never asked him her name or the number of her house. 
It seemed better to let it all rest as a picture and a song, unsobered by geo¬ 
graphy and undisturbed by location. His fable about the woman who soaped 
the railroad track so that the train could not kill her stock was said to be a 
puzzle to his English readers, who knew of no stock except corporation 
shares, but it was Kansas language which we all knew well enough. 

Some years ago at a banquet at the Goodlander he was prevailed upon 
to recite the “Admission of Hie Jones,” and when he came to the passage 
about “Thomas, of the ‘Wilder,’ chief nose-artist of the town,” he paused 
and called attention to the fact that “Tommy” was present in his own proper 
person, being then the steward of the hotel. “Tommy” had gone out of the 
nose-painting business owing to the prohibitory law enacted in part by the 
vote of Mr. Ware. 

One time he and I were billed for a schoolhouse meeting to discuss the 
tariff. The farmers listened in blank obfuscation as he discussed learnedly 
about the exports of certain far-away islands, and he did not make a vote. 
But one night in the courthouse square he made a tariff speech in which he 
said in substance that he was for protection; for protecting the United 
States against every other country; he was for protecting the continent of 
North America against all the other continents; the western hemisphere 
against all the other hemispheres; and the world itself against the moon 
and all the other planets. This speech made votes. 

He was a hale fellow well met, always social and genial and full of jokes 
and puns, and would swing along the street and greet a friend with a gusto 
as refreshing as a summer breeze; but he could not make the farmers and 
workingmen understand him. He had what they called a toplofty air, and 
he could not impress them that he felt himself one of them. Once while a 
convention in which he was interested was gathering, he talked with some 
farmers who were standing delegates, and tried to entertain them, but I 
could see that to them, as Frank Ryan said about the short hand man, he 
was talking in an unknown tongue. This and his utter fearlessness and en¬ 
tire lack of policy made it impossible to secure the congressional nomination 
which once or twice escaped him by two or three votes in his own county 
convention. Yet all felt and believed that he would make his mark in Con¬ 
gress and be a unique and decided advertisement for the district. 

He never did anything like anybody else. He once advertised for a hired 
girl and held out the inducement that every girl who took employment at 
his house soon got married. When all the local sentiment was growing and 
sensitive in favor of prohibition he put a piece in the paper about how pro¬ 
hibition made him tired; and afterward, when an aspirant for Congress, 
this was copied in dodger form and thrown into all the farm wagons on the 
public square. 

In one brief in supreme court which discussed the practice of taking the 
other party’s deposition and fishing out in advance what he would swear to, 
he remarked: “Judicial piscary is not yet established in this state.” An¬ 
other time, in replying to a brief which alleged that some one had died of 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


53 


chronic peritonitis, he said he supposed that must be a good deal like a chronic 
stroke of lightning. Once, when chosen judge pro tem., he mounted the 
bench and said: ‘ Mr. Sheriff, you will please see that we have considerable 
style around here now. His wife and daughters are Vassar graduates, and 
not long ago he sought in federal court an injunction against the use of the 
word “Vassar” for certain chocolate candy, and advised the court that he 
thought there ought to be some rule of law or equity somewhere which would 
fit the case. But he was a strong lawyer, and when he left Fort Scott years 
ago to join the Gleed firm he was the leader of the bar there, which was no 
mean thing, for Fort Scott has for forty years had a bar of high caliber. He 
was much gratified at being able to settle in supreme court several questions 
of practice. Like Ben Butler, he gloried in a knotty case, and hating fraud 
as he did, he loved a creditor’s bill in which he could make life miserable for 
some miscreant who had tried to beat his just debts. His experience and 
practice were wide and his emoluments were large. He was for a time at¬ 
torney for the Kansas, Nebraska & Dakota Railroad. We had a small 
damage suit pending against his client, and one evening he sent for me, and 
I found him out in his front yard telling his children the names of the various 
planets in the bright summer sky. He said he was on the verge of a collapse 
and wanted to settle the case with me or arrange for it. But he was all right 
the next day and had no collapse, though he was overworking himself, as he 
often did. When he returned from his European tour he gave a talk con¬ 
cerning the same at the Baptist church, and upon introducing him I was 
struck by his request to leave a chair where he could drop into it as he might 
need it; but he went through with the address without difficulty. Aside 
from these indications, and the fact that he carried an unhealed scar from a 
serious army wound on his arm, he seemed in robust health always until near 
the end. About twelve years ago he told me that some one said he ought to 
get a pension, but that he replied that a client did not want a lawyer who 
drew a pension to thrash out his law suits, but a big healthy fellow who 
could stand the strain. When later on he did apply for and receive a pension 
he devoted it to the benefit of a young student in whom he was interested. 
The last time I saw him at his office in Kansas City, Kan., he said: “I am 
three times a grandfather, and have not a thing to worry me but the conduct 
of the Republican party.” 

He was a harness maker by trade, and that may explain his once driving 
a mule car down town, to his great delight. Doubtless the leather and the 
lines brought back memories of many days of leather and clamp and wax 
and twine. He had a long and fine record as a soldier and always kept in his 
office the old iron box used for a safe on his campaign. His work on the Fort 
Scott Monitor made him known, and there his reputation as a writer, a poet 
and a wit began. Had he remained a newspaper man I have no doubt he 
would have been famous and successful, but he loved the law and desired 
most of all to be known as a lawyer. No one was ever quicker to appreciate 
and consider ability in his opponent, and no one more loved the legal fray. 
But he was a born literatus. His gift of the Ware library was the nucleus 
of the Fort Scott library, and for a long time was all the city had. I am sorry 
he left Topeka, he liked the place, and here he felt at home. At the Cremerie 
at noon he ordered his pumpkin pie, glass of milk and “fragment of cheese,” 
and made it a place almost as sweet to the memory of its frequenters as 


54 


Kansas State Historical Society . 


Will’s Coffee House was to its London patrons in its palmy days. His big 
meal must have been at evening, for he told me once that for breakfast he 
usually had a glass of water and the Topeka Capital, and there are those who 
would consider this a very mild form of breakfast food. As age came on he 
increased in girth, and his physique and iron-gray hair and moustache would 
attract attention anywhere. He was abundantly able to quit work, and 
gradually did retire from the practice, never losing his love for the profession 
or his interest in his brother lawyers. He had some enemies, and was by no 
means a bad hater himself, possessing a vocabulary which could express as 
many different kinds of aversion as ever became necessary. He was erratic, 
he was different; but the only real description or definition possible to give 
is that he was Eugene Ware. To us who knew him that is ample and clear, 
and most clear to those who knew him best. His only public position, save 
that of state senator, was Commissioner of Pensions. There he showed more 
courage, made more enemies and was more talked about than any prede¬ 
cessor or successor. It did not fit his nature to be the head of a bureau whose 
rulings could be reversed and whose policy could be questioned by various 
tribunals and authorities, and most distasteful of all was the notion that any 
official act should have any consideration from a political standpoint. After 
several years of efficient management he left the position with an expressed 
desire once more to eat pumpkin pie at the Cremerie, and with a letter of 
highest commendation from President Roosevelt. 

Many thought and think that Mr. Ware was an infidel, but I do not 
believe it. His mother was a typical, frail, devout New England Congrega¬ 
tionalism His father was also a devoted member of the same church, and 
having been a sailor for years and an insatiable reader, was one of the most 
lovable and entertaining old men I ever knew. That Mr. Ware’s faith was 
not fixed there can be but little doubt, but flashing from various poems were 
expressions that lead one to think that he wanted to believe, and did believe 
in his own way. When Loren Farnsworth went to him for a subscription 
towards the expense of getting a Unitarian to come and preach, he replied 
that his wife and daughters belonged to the Baptist church and he was 
helping foot the bills where they believed in the Trinity, and he did not see 
why he should put in money to help tear down two-thirds of that Trinity, 
and he did not give a cent. I believe he had a greater mind and nature, a 
bigger heart and brain than many of his acquaintances realized. With all 
his faults, I am glad he was my friend for more than thirty years and that I 
can not live long enough to forget his kindnesses, his inimitable voice and 
manner, his whole-souled hospitality, his love for old-time scenes and friends, 
and his unique personality. His ambition was to return to the old farm in 
Cherokee county where he first settled and built a cabin, and write a book. 
He did return and began writing, and during his usual vacation at Cascade 
the great heart suddenly ceased to beat, and Eugene Ware was no more to 
be our neighbor, our friend and our entertainer. 

The National Cemetery at Fort Scott is on a western slope crowned by a 
prominence where the pavilion and superintendent’s office are. It looks 
towards the city, so much a part of which Eugene Ware was for a quarter of 
a century. Entering the double iron gate the drive leads up the center be¬ 
tween rows of headstones, then divides and circles to the right and left, 
leaving the bare slope of blue grass untouched. Right inside the divide, 


Eugene Fitch Ware. 


55 


fronting the field of graves below, by special dispensation of the War De¬ 
partment, lies the body of Eugene Ware. As I rode out to see the new-made 
mound it seemed as if by calling he could be induced to rise and greet me 
with his old-time warmth and vehemence. Forty years ago on the green 
prairie by Jimmy Jones’ store I first saw him. Life was then before him and 
its promises were sweet. After four decades he was laid to rest in the blue 
grass only a few miles from these same prairies, life ended, its promises 
variously broken and kept. But a name and fame gained, and that crown 
of crowns, the respect and almost idolizing love of his family, and love and 
gratitude from his country sufficient to break the rule and permit him to 
rest a little up the hill from his fallen comrades, where one can see a little 
farther over the old town, a little higher up, a little nearer heaven, where the 
washerwoman had a Friend who would keep her to the end, and whose faith 
he said he would not destroy. 


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Gaylord Bros. 

Makers 

Syracuse, N. Y. 
PAT. JAN. 21,1908 































